THE    BELFRY 

MAY    SINCLAIR 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


}4'tiL~VjC*>i       &»A   wA«vx 


THE  BELFRY 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  .  BOSTON  .  CHICAGO 
DALLAS  .  ATLANTA  .  SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &.  CO..  LIMITED 

LONDON  .  BOMBAY  .  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA.  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE   BELFRY 


BY 

MAY   SINCLAIR 

AUTHOB  OF  "THE  THBEK  SISTEBS,"  ETC. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTBIQHT,    1016, 

BT  MAY  SINCLAIR. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published,  February.  1916. 


College 
Library 

' 

£037 


BOOK   I 
MY   BOOK 


4  H  4  pccrn 
AlitJODU 


BOOK  I 

MY  BOOK 

I 

OF  course  this  story  can't  be  published  as  it  stands  just 
yet.  Not — if  I'm  to  be  decent — for  another  generation, 
because,  thank  Heaven,  they're  still  alive.  (They've  had 
me  there,  as  they've  always  had  me  everywhere.)  How 
they  managed  it  I  can't  think.  I  don't  mean  merely  at 
the  end,  though  that  was  stupendous,  but  how  they  ever 
managed  it.  It  seems  to  me  they  must  have  taken  all  the 
risks,  always. 

I  suppose  if  you  asked  him  he'd  say,  "That's  how."  It 
was  certainly  the  way  they  managed  the  business  of  liv- 
ing. Perhaps  it's  why  they  managed  it  on  the  whole  so 
well.  I  remember  how  when  I  was  shilly-shallying  about 
that  last  job  of  mine  he  said,  "Take  it.  Take  it.  If  you 
can  risk  living  at  all,  my  dear  fellow,  you  can  risk  that." 

And  he  added,  "If  I'd  only  your  luck !" 

Well,  that's  exactly  what  he  did  have.  He  had  my  luck, 
I  mean  the  luck  I  ought  to  have  had,  all  the  time,  from 
the  beginning  to  the  very  end.  But  there  is  one  thing  he 
can't  take  from  me,  and  that  is  the  telling  of  this  story. 
He  can  hold  it  up  as  long  as  he  lives — as  long  as  slie  lives 
— as  he  has  held  up  pretty  nearly  everything  where  I 
was  concerned.  But  he  can't  take  it  from  me.  He  doesn't 
"want"  it.  Even  he  with  his  infernal  talent  couldn't  do 
anything  with  it.  Unscrupulous  as  he  was,  and  I  assure 
you  he'd  stick  at  nothing  (he'd  "take"  his  mother's  last 
agony  if  he  "wanted"  it  badly  enough),  indecent  as  he 
was,  he'd  stick  at  that. 

3 


4  THE  BELFRY 

I  don't  mean  he  couldn't  take  his  wife,  part  of  her,  any- 
how, at  a  pinch.  And  I  don't  mean  he  couldn't  take  him- 
self, his  own  emotions,  his  own  eccentricities,  if  he  hap- 
pened to  want  them,  and  his  own  meannesses,  if  nobody 
else's,  so  to  speak,  would  do.  But  he  couldn't  and  wouldn't 
take  his  own  big  things,  particularly  not  that  last  thing. 

When  I  say  that  I  can't  publish  this  story  yet  as  it 
stands,  I'm  not  forgetting  that  I  have  published  the  end 
of  it  already.  But  only  in  the  way  of  business ;  to  publish 
that  sort  of  thing  was  what  I  went  out  for;  it  was  all 
part  of  my  Special  Correspondent's  job. 

And  when  you  think  that  it  was  just  touch  and  go — 
Why,  if  I  hadn't  bucked  up  and  taken  that  job  when  he 
told  me  to  I  might  have  missed  him.  No  amount  of  hear- 
ing about  him  would  have  been  the  same  thing.  I  had  to 
see  him. 

What  I  wrote  then  doesn't  count.  I  had  to  tell  what 
I  saw  just  after  I  had  seen  it.  I  had  to  take  it  as  I  saw 
it,  a  fragment  snapped  off  from  the  rest  of  him,  and  dated 
October  llth,  1914,  as  if  it  didn't  belong  to  him;  as  if  he 
were  only  another  splendid  instance.  And  of  course  I  had 
to  leave  her  out. 

Told  like  that,  it  didn't  amount  to  much. 

This  is  the  real  telling. 

I  must  get  away  from  the  end,  right  back  to  the  begin- 
ning. 

I  suppose,  to  be  accurate,  the  very  beginning  was  the 
day  I  first  met  him  in  nineteen-six — no,  nineteen-five  it 
must  have  been.  It  was  at  Blackheath  Football  Ground, 
the  last  match  of  the  season,  when  Woolwich  Arsenal 
played  East  Kent  and  beat  them  by  two  goals  and  a  try. 
He  was  there  as  a  representative  of  the  Press,  "doing" 
the  match  for  some  sporting  paper. 


MY  BOOK  5 

He  held  me  up  at  the  barrier  (yes,  he  held  me  up  in 
the  first  moment  of  our  acquaintance)  while  he  fumbled 
for  his  pass.  He  had  given  the  word  "Press"  with  an 
exaggerated  aplomb  that  showed  he  was  young  to  his  job, 
and  the  gate-keeper  challenged  him.  It  was,  in  fact,  the 
exquisite  self-consciousness  of  the  little  man  that  made 
me  look  at  him.  And  he  caught  me  looking  at  him;  he 
blushed,  caught  himself  blushing  and  smiled  to  himself 
with  the  most  delicious  appreciation  of  his  own  absurdity. 
And  as  he  stood  there  fumbling,  and  holding  me  up  while 
he  argued  with  the  gate-keeper,  who  didn't  know  him,  I 
got  his  engaging  twinkle.  It  was  as  if  he  looked  at  me  and 
said,  "See  me  swank  just  then  ?  Funny,  wasn't  it  ?" 

He  hung  about  on  the  edge  of  the  crowd  for  a  while 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  sucking  his  little  blond 
moustache  and  looking  dreamy  and  rather  incompetent. 
I  was  a  full-blown  journalist  even  then,  and  I  remember 
feeling  a  sort  of  pity  for  his  youth.  He  was  so  obviously 
on  his  maiden  trip,  and  obviously,  I  fancied,  doomed  never 
to  arrive  in  any  port. 

Well — well ;  I  came  upon  him  afterwards  at  a  crisis  in 
the  game.  He  was  taking  notes  in  shorthand  with  a  sort 
of  savagery  between  his  tense  and  concentrated  glares  at 
the  scrimmage  that  was  then  massed  in  the  centre  of  the 
field.  Woolwich  Arsenal  and  East  Kent,  locked  in  each 
other's  bodies,  now  struggled  and  writhed  and  butted  like 
two  immense  beasts  welded  together  by  the  impact  of  their 
battle,  now  swayed  and  quivered  and  snorted  as  one  beast 
torn  by  a  solitary  and  mysterious  rage. 

Self-consciousness  had  vanished  from  my  man.  He 
stood,  leaning  forward  with  his  legs  a  little  apart.  His 
boyish  face  was  deeply  flushed ;  he  had  sucked  and  bitten 
his  blond  moustache  into  a  wisp ;  he  was  breathing  heavily, 
with  his  mouth  ajar;  his  very  large  and  conspicuous  blue 


6  THE  BELFRY 

eyes  glittered  with  a  sort  of  passion.  (He  wore  those  eyes 
in  his  odd  little  ugly  face  like  some  inappropriate  decora- 
tion.) 

All  these  symptoms  declared  that  he  was  "on."  They 
made  up  a  look  that  I  was  soon  to  know  him  by. 

I  remember  marvelling  at  his  excitement. 

I  remember  also  discussing  the  match  with  him  as  we 
went  back  to  town.  It  must  have  been  then  that  he  began 
to  tell  me  about  himself :  that  his  name  was  James  Tasker 
Jevons;  that  he  lived,  or  hoped  to  live,  by  going  about 
the  country  and  reporting  the  big  cricket  and  football 
matches. 

At  least  he  called  it  reporting.  I  shouldn't  think  there 
has  ever  been  any  reporting  like  it  before  or  since. 

I  told  him  I  was  out  for  my  paper,  the  Morning  Stand- 
ard, too.  Not  exactly  reporting,  in  his  sense  (I  little  knew 
what  his  sense  was  when  I  put  it  that  way)  ;  and  there  left 
it.  You  see,  I  didn't  want  to  rub  it  into  the  poor  chap  that 
the  stranger  he  had  been  unfolding  himself  to  so  quaintly 
was  a  cut  above  his  job. 

But  he  saw  through  it.  I  don't  know  how  he  managed 
to  convey  to  me  that  my  delicacy  needn't  suffer.  Anyhow, 
he  must  have  had  some  scruples  of  his  own,  since  he  waited 
for  another  context  before  remarking  quietly  that  what  I 
was  doing  now  he  would  be  doing  in  another  six  months. 
(And  he  was.)  These  things,  he  said,  took  time,  and  he 
gave  himself  six  months.  (Yes;  in  less  than  six  months 
he  was  holding  me  up,  again,  in  my  own  paper.  I  had  to 
wait  till  he  was  "out"  before  I  could  get  in.)  He  didn't 
seem  to  boast  so  much  as  to  trace  for  my  benefit  the  path 
of  some  natural  force,  some  upward-tending,  indestructible 
Energy  that  happened  to  be  him. 

All  this  I  remember.  But  I  cannot  remember  by  what 
stages  we  arrived  at  dining  together,  as  we  did  that  night 


in  a  little  restaurant  in  Soho.  Perhaps  there  were  no 
stages;  we  may  have  simply  leaped  by  one  bound  at  that 
consummation.  He  had  swung  himself  into  my  compart- 
ment as  the  train  was  leaving  the  platform  at  Blackheath ; 
so  I  suppose  it  was  destiny.  After  that  I  was  tempted  to 
conceive  that  he  fastened  on  me  as  on  something  that  he 
had  need  of;  but  I  think  it  was  rather  that  I  fell  to  his 
mysterious  attraction. 

While  we  dined  he  informed  me  further  that  he  had 
been  reporting  football  matches  for  six  weeks.  Before 
that  he  had  been  proof-reader  for  a  firm  of  printers  for 
about  a  year.  Before  that  he  had  been  a  compositor.  And 
before  that  again  he  had  worked  in  an  office  with  his  fa- 
ther, who  was  Registrar  of  Births,  Marriages  and  Deaths 
for  some  parish  down  in  Hertfordshire.  He  chucked  that 
because  he  found  that  the  registration  of  births,  marriages 
and  deaths  was  spoiling  his  handwriting  quite  as  much  as 
his  handwriting  was  spoiling  the  registration  of  births, 
marriages  and  deaths.  (He  was,  he  said,  cultivating  a 
careless,  scholarly  hand.)  He  liked  his  present  job,  be- 
cause it  took  him  out  pretty  often  into  the  open  air.  Also 
he  liked  looking  on  at  football  matches  and  prize  fights. 

He  said  it  made  him  feel  manly. 

You  should  have  seen  him  sitting  there  and  telling  me 
these  things  in  a  gentle,  throaty  and  rather  thick  voice 
with  a  cockney  accent  and  a  sort  of  tenor  ring  in  it  and 
a  queer,  humorous  intonation  that  was  like  an  audible 
twinkle,  as  if  he  saw  himself  as  he  thought  I  must  see  him, 
mainly  in  the  light  of  absurdity.  You  should  have  seen  his 
face,  its  thin  cheeks,  its  vivid  flush,  its  queer,  inquisitive, 
contradictory  nose  that  had  a  slender,  high  bridge 
and  a  tilted,  pointed  end  in  profile  and  three-quarters,  and 
turned  suddenly  all  broad  and  blunt  in  a  full  view;  and 
his  mouth  that  stood  ajar  with  excitement,  and  even  in 


8  THE  BELFRY 

moments  of  quiescence  failed  to  hide  the  tips  of  two  rather 
prominent  white  teeth  pressed  down  on  the  lower  lip.  I 
don't  say  there  was  anything  unmanly  ahout  Jevons's  fig- 
ure (he  wasn't  noticeably  undersized),  or  about  his  mouth 
and  jaw.  I  knew  a  great  General  with  a  mouth  and  jaw 
like  that,  and  he  was  one  of  the  handsomest  figures  in  the 
Service.  I'm  not  hinting  at  anything  like  effeminacy  in 
Jevons,  only  at  a  certain  oddity  that  really  saved  him.  If 
he'd  been  handsome  he'd  have  been  dreadful.  His  flush, 
his  decorative  eyes,  his  dark  eyebrows  and  eyelashes,  hia 
sleek,  light  brown  hair,  would  have  made  him  vulgar.  As 
it  was,  his  queerness  gave  them  a  sort  of  point. 

I  dwell  on  these  physical  details  because,  afterwards,  I 
found  myself  continually  looking  at  him  as  if  to  see  where 
his  charm  lay.  To  see,  I  suppose,  what  she  saw  in  him. 

If  anybody  had  asked  me  that  night  what  I  saw  in  him 
myself  beyond  an  ordinary  little  journalist  "on  the  make," 
I  don't  suppose  I  could  have  told  them.  But  there's  no 
doubt  that  I  felt  his  charm,  or  that  night  would  have  been 
the  end  instead  of  the  beginning. 

We  sat  in  the  restaurant  when  he  had  done  telling  me 
about  himself;  I  remember  we  sat  quite  a  long  time  dis- 
cussing an  English  writer — our  contemporary — whom  I 
rather  considered  I  had  discovered.  In  those  days  I  used 
to  apply  him  as  an  infallible  test.  Jevons  had  read  every 
word  of  him ;  it  was  he,  in  fact,  who  brought  him  into  the 
conversation.  He  confessed  afterwards  that  he  had  done  it 
on  purpose.  He  had  been  testing  me. 

Even  so  our  acquaintance  might  have  lapsed  but  for 
the  thing  that  happened  when  the  waiter  came  up  with  the 
bill.  My  share  of  it  was  three  and  twopence,  and  I  found 
myself  with  only  ninepence  in  my  pocket.  I  had  to  bor- 
row half  a  crown  from  Jevons.  You  mayn't  see  anything 
very  dreadful  in  that.  I  didn't  at  the  time,  and  there 


MY  BOOK  9 

wasn't.  The  dreadful  thing  was  that  I  forgot  to  pay  him 
back. 

Yes.  Something  happened  that  put  Jevons  and  his  half- 
crown  out  of  my  head  for  long  enough.  I  forgot  to  pay 
him,  and  he  had  to  go  without  his  dinner  for  three  nights 
in  consequence.  It  was  his  last  half-crown. 

He  told  me  this  as  an  immense  joke,  long  afterwards. 

And  Viola  Thesiger  cried. 

That  crying  of  hers,  that  child-like  softening  and  break- 
ing down  under  him,  in  itself  so  unexpected  (I  didn't 
know  she  could  do  it),  that  sudden  and  innocent  catas- 
trophe, was  the  first  sign  to  me  that  I  was  done  for — wiped 
out.  There  wasn't  any  violence  or  any  hysteria  about  it, 
only  grief,  only  pity.  It  was  an  entirely  simple,  gentle 
and  beautiful  performance,  and  it  took  place  in  my  rooms 
after  Jevons  had  left  us.  But,  as  I  say,  this  was  long  after- 
wards. The  agony  of  my  undoing  was  a  horribly  pro- 
tracted affair. 

I  needn't  say  that  what  happened — I  mean  the  thing 
that  made  me  forget  all  about  Jevons  and  his  half-crown — 
was  Viola  Thesiger. 

I  had  his  address,  but  the  next  day — the  day  after  the 
match — was  Sunday,  so  I  couldn't  get  the  postal  order  I 
had  meant  to  send  him.  And  on  Monday  she  walked  into 
my  rooms  at  ten  in  the  morning. 

The  appointment,  I  may  remark,  was  for  nine-thirty.  I 
had  fixed  that  early  hour  for  it  because  I  wanted  to  get 
it  done  with.  I  wasn't  going  to  have  my  morning  mur- 
dered with  violence  when  it  was  two  hours  old ;  neither  did 
I  intend  it  to  be  poisoned  by  the  thought  of  this  interview 
hanging  over  me  at  the  end. 

I  had  just  sent  for  Pavitt,  my  man,  and  told  him  that 
if  Miss  Thesiger  called  he  was  on  no  account  to  let  her  in. 
He  was  to  say  that  the  appointment  was  for  nine-thirty 


io  THE  BELFRY 

and  that  Mr.  Furnival  was  now  engaged.  She  would  have 
to  call  again  at  three  if  she  wished  to  see  him.  When  en- 
gaging a  typist  it  is  as  well  to  begin  as  you  mean  to  go  on, 
and  I  was  anxious  to  let  Miss  Thesiger  know  at  once  that 
I  was  not  a  man  who  would  stand  any  nonsense.  I  was 
abominably  busy  that  morning. 

And  Pavitt  let  her  in.  (It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
failed  in  this  way.)  He  never  explained  or  apologized  for 
it  afterwards.  He  seemed  to  think  that  when  I  had  seen 
Miss  Thesiger  I  would  see,  even  more  vividly  than  he  did, 
how  impossible  it  was  to  do  otherwise,  unless  he  had  relin- 
quished all  claim  to  manhood  and  to  chivalry.  The  look 
he  sent  me  from  the  threshold  as  he  retreated  backwards, 
drawing  the  door  upon  himself  like  a  screen  and  shutting 
me  in  alone  with  her,  said  very  plainly,  "You  may  curse, 
sir,  and  you  may  swear ;  but  if  you  think  you'll  get  out  of 
it  any  better  than  I  have  you're  mistaken." 

Yes:  it  was  something  more  than  her  appearance  and 
her  manner,  though  they,  in  all  conscience,  were  enough. 

I  do  not  know  what  appearance  and  what  manner,  if 
any,  are  proper  to  a  young  woman  calling  on  a  young  man 
at  his  rooms  to  seek  employment.  The  mere  situation  may, 
for  all  I  know,  bristle  with  embarrassments.  Anyhow,  I 
can  imagine  that  in  some  hands  it  might  have  moments, 
let  us  say,  of  extreme  difficulty  on  either  side.  Miss 
Thesiger's  appearance  and  her  manner  were  perfect;  but 
they  didn't  suggest  by  any  sign  or  shade  that  she  was  a 
young  woman  seeking  employment,  that  she  was  a  young 
woman  seeking  anything ;  but  rather  that  she  was  a  young 
woman  to  whom  all  things  naturally  came. 

She  approached  me  very  slowly.  Her  adorable  little  salu- 
tation, with  all  its  maturity,  its  gravity,  was  somehow 
essentially  young.  She  was  rather  tall,  and  her  figure  had 
the  same  serious  maturity  in  youth.  She  carried  her  small 


MY  BOOK  ii 

head  high,  and  held  her  shoulders  well  back,  so  that  she 
got  a  sort  of  squareness  into  the  divine  slope  of  them  (peo- 
ple hadn't  begun  to  slouch  forward  from  the  hips  in  those 
days) ,  a  squareness  that  agreed  somehow  with  the  character 
of  her  small  face.  I  didn't  know  then  whether  it  was  a 
pretty  face  or  not.  I  daresay  it  was  a  bit  too  odd  and 
square  for  prettiness,  and,  as  for  beauty,  that  had  all  gone 
into  the  lines  of  her  body  (which  was  beautiful,  if  you 
like).  When  you  looked  carefully,  you  got  a  little  square, 
white  forehead,  and  straight  eyebrows  of  the  same  darkness 
as  her  hair,  and  very  distinct  on  the  white,  and  eyes  also 
very  dark  and  distinct,  and  fairly  crystalline  with  youth ; 
and  a  little  white  and  very  young  nose  that  started  straight 
and  ended  absurdly  in  a  little  soft  knob  that  had  a  sort  of 
kink  in  it ;  and  a  mouth  which  would  have  been  too  large 
for  her  face  if  it  hadn't  made  room  for  itself  by  tilting  up 
at  the  corners;  and  then  a  little  square  white  chin  and 
jaw;  they  were  thrust  forward,  but  so  lightly  and  slen- 
derly that  it  didn't  matter.  It  doesn't  sound — does  it  ? — 
as  if  she  could  have  been  pretty,  let  alone  beautiful ;  and 
yet — and  yet  she  managed  that  little  head  of  hers  and  that 
little  odd  face  so  as  to  give  an  impression  of  beauty  or  of 
prettiness.  It  was  partly  the  oddness  of  the  face  and  head, 
coming  on  the  top  of  all  that  symmetry,  that  perfection, 
that  made  the  total  effect  of  her  so  bewildering.  I  can't 
find  words  for  the  total  effect  (I  don't  know  that  you  ever 
got  it  all  at  once,  and  I  certainly  didn't  get  it  then) ,  and  if 
I  were  to  tell  you  that  what  struck  me  first  about  her  was 
something  perverse  and  wilful  and  defiant,  this  would  be 
misleading. 

She  smiled  in  her  mature,  perfunctory  manner  as  she 
took  the  chair  I  gave  her.  She  cast  out  her  muff  over  my 
writing-table,  and  flung  back  the  furs  that  covered  her 
breast  and  shoulders,  as  if  she  had  come  to  stay,  as  if  it 


12  THE  BELFRY 

were  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  I  had  asked  her  to 
tea  for  the  first  time. 

I  remember  saying,  "That's  right.  I'm  afraid  this  room 
is  a  bit  warm,  isn't  it  ?" — as  if  she  had  done  something  un- 
invited and  a  little  unexpected,  and  I  wished  to  reassure 
her.  As  if,  too,  I  desired  to  assert  my  position  as  the  giver 
of  assurances. 

(And  it  was  I  who  needed  them,  not  she.) 

She  hadn't  been  in  that  room  five  minutes  before  she  had 
created  a  situation ;  a  situation  that  bristled  with  difficulty 
and  danger. 

To  begin  with,  she  was  so  young.  She  couldn't  have 
been,  then,  a  day  older  than  one-and-twenty.  My  first  in- 
stinct (at  least,  I  suppose  it  was  my  first)  was  to  send  her 
away;  to  tell  her  that  I  was  afraid  she  wouldn't  do,  that 
she  was  too  unpunctual,  and  that  I  had  found,  between 
nine-thirty  and  ten  o'clock,  somebody  who  would  suit  me 
rather  better.  Any  lie  I  could  think  of,  so  long  as  I  got 
out  of  it.  So  long  as  I  got  her  out  of  it. 

I  don't  know  how  it  was  she  so  contrived  to  impress  me 
as  being  in  for  something,  some  impetuous  adventure,  some 
enterprise  of  enormous  uncertainty.  It  may  have  been  be- 
cause she  looked  so  well-cared-for  and  expensive.  I  do  not 
understand  these  matters,  but  her  furs,  and  her  tailor-made 
suit  of  dark  cloth,  and  the  little  black  velvet  hat  with  the 
fur  tail  in  it  were  not  the  sort  of  clothes  I  had  hitherto  seen 
worn  by  typists  seeking  for  employment.  So  that  I 
doubted  whether  financial  necessity  could  have  driven  her 
to  my  door.  Or  else  I  had  a  premonition.  She  herself  had 
none.  She  was  guileless  and  unaware  of  taking  any  risks. 
And  that,  I  think,  was  what  disturbed  me.  The  situation 
bristled  because  she  so  ignored  all  difficulty  or  danger. 

Please  don't  imagine  that  I  regarded  myself  as  danger- 
ous or  even  difficult,  or  her  as  being,  in  any  vulgar  sense, 


MY  BOOK  13 

out  for  adventure,  or  as  balancing  herself  even  for  amuse- 
ment on  any  perilous  edge.  It  was  not  what  she  was  out 
for,  it  was,  as  I  say,  what  she  might  possibly  be  in  for ;  and 
what  she  would,  in  consequence,  let  me  in  for  too.  She 
made  me  feel  responsible. 

"Let  me  see,"  I  said ;  "it's  typing,  isn't  it  ?" 

I  began  raking  through  drawers  and  pigeon-holes,  pre- 
tending to  find  her  letter  and  the  sample  of  her  work  that 
she  had  sent  me,  though  I  knew  all  the  time  that  they  lay 
under  my  hand  hidden  by  the  blotter.  I  wanted  to  give 
myself  time;  I  wanted  to  create  the  impression  that  I 
was  old  at  this  game;  that  I  had  to  do  with  scores  and 
scores  of  young  women  seeking  employment ;  to  make  her 
realize  the  grim  fact  of  competition ;  to  saturate  her  with 
the  idea  that  she  was  only  one  of  scores  and  scores,  all 
docketed  and  pigeon-holed,  any  one  of  whom  might  have 
superior  qualities;  when  it  would  be  easy  enough  to  say, 
"I'm  sorry,  but  the  fact  is,  I  rather  think  I've  engaged 
somebody  already." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "it's  typing.  I  can't  do  anything  else. 
But  if  you  want  shorthand,  I  could  learn  it." 

This  gave  me  an  opening.  "Well — I'm  sorry — but  the 
fact  is " 

"Did  you  like  what  I  sent  you  ?" 

That  staggered  me.  I  hadn't  allowed  for  her  voice. 
For  a  moment  I  wondered  wildly  what  had  she  sent  me  ? 

"Oh,  yes.    I  liked  it.    But "  I  began  it  again. 

She  leaned  forward  this  time,  peering  under  my  elbow 
(the  minx!  I'm  convinced  she  knew  the  infernal  thing 
was  there). 

"I  see,"  she  said.  "You've  lost  it.  Don't  bother.  I 
can  do  another.  As  long  as  you  liked  it,  that's  all  right." 

I  remember  thinking  violently :  "It  isn't  all  right.  It's 
all  wrong.  And  the  more  I  like  it  (if  I  do  like  it)  the 


14  THE  BELFRY 

worse  it's  going  to  be."  But  all  I  said  was,  "You  wrote 
from  Canterbury,  didn't  you?" 

"Yes." 

It  was  as  if  she  challenged  me  with :  "Why  not  ?  Why 
shouldn't  one  write  from  Canterbury?"  And  she  stuck 
out  her  little  chin  as  her  eyes  opened  fire  on  me  at  close 
range. 

"Do  you  live  there  ?"  I  said. 

"Yes."    She  corrected  herself.    "My  people  live  there." 

"Oh!  Because — in  that  case — I'm  sorry — but — the 

fact  is,  I'm  afraid "  I  floundered,  and  she  watched 

me  floundering.  Then  I  plunged.  "I  must  have  a  typist 
who  lives  in  London."  (And  I  might  have  added  "a  typist 
who  won't  open  fire  on  me  at  close  range.") 

"But,"  she  said,  "I  do — at  least,  I'm  going  to  to-mor- 
row evening." 

I  must  have  sat  staring  then  quite  a  long  time,  not  at 
her,  but  at  one  of  Roland  Simpson's  sketches  on  the  wall 
in  front  of  me. 

She  followed,  but  not  quite  accurately,  the  direction  of 
my  thoughts. 

"If  you  want  references,  I  can  give  you  heaps.  General 
Thesiger's  my  uncle.  Why  ?  Do  you  know  him  ?" 

I  had  ceased  staring.  He  was  not  the  General  I  knew, 
but  she  had  spoken  a  sufficiently  distinguished  name.  I 
said  as  much. 

"Of  course  lots  of  people  know  him,"  she  went  on  with 
a  sort  of  radiant  rapidity.  "And  he  knows  lots  of  people. 
But  I  wouldn't  write  to  him  if  I  were  you.  He'll  only  be 
rude,  and  ask  you  who  the  devil  you  are.  There's  my 
father,  Canon  Thesiger.  It's  no  good  writing  to  him, 
either.  It'll  worry  him.  And  there's — no,  you  mustn't 
bother  the  Archbishop.  But  there's  the  Dean.  You  might 
write  to  him!  And  there's  Colonel  Braithwaite  and  Mrs. 


MY  BOOK  15 

Braithwaite.  They're  all  dears.  You  might  write  to  any 
of  them.  Only  I'd  much  rather  you  didn't." 

"Why?"  I  said.     I  thought  I  was  entitled  to  ask  why. 

"Because,"  she  said,  "it'll  only  mean  a  lot  more  bother 
for  me." 

I  believe  I  meditated  on  this  before  I  asked  her,  "Why 
should  it?" 

"Because  it  isn't  easy  to  get  away  and  earn  your  own 
living  in  this  country.  And  they'll  try,  poor  dears,  to  stop 
me.  And  they  can't." 

"If  they  don't,"  I  said,  "are  you  sure  it  won't  mean  a 
lot  of  bother  for  them  ?" 

"Not,"  she  said  gravely,  "if  they're  left  alone  and  not 
worried.  It  will,  of  course,  if  you  go  and  write  and  stir 
them  all  up  again." 

"I  see.    For  the  moment,  then,  they  are  placated  ?" 

"Bather."  (I  wondered  on  what  grounds.)  "We  set- 
tled that  last  night." 

"Then — "  I  said,  "forgive  my  asking  so  many  questions 
— your  people  know  you  had  this  appointment  with  me  ?" 

Her  eyebrows  took  a  little  tortured  twist  in  her  pity  for 
my  stupidity. 

"Oh  no.  That  would  have  upset  them  all  for  nothing. 
It  doesn't  do  to  worry  them  with  silly  details.  You  see, 
they  don't  know  anything  about  you." 

It  was  exquisite,  the  innocence  with  which  she  brought 
it  out. 

"But,"  I  insisted,  "that's  rather  my  point.  You  don't 
know  anything  about  me  either,  do  you  ?" 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  knew,"  she  said,  "the  minute  I  came  into 
the  room.  If  it  comes  to  that,  you  don't  know  anything 
about  me" 

I  said  I  did ;  I  knew  the  minute  she  came  into  the  room. 


16  THE  BELFRY 

And  she  faced  me  with,  "Well  then,  you  see !"  as  if  that 
settled  it. 

I  suppose  it  did  settle  it.  I  must  have  decided  that 
since  nobody  could  stop  her,  and  I  wasn't,  after  all,  a 
villain,  if  she  insisted  on  being  somebody's  typist,  she  had 
very  much  better  be  mine.  You  see,  she  was  so  young. 
I  wanted  to  protect  her.  Not  that  there  was  anything 
helpless  and  pathetic  about  her,  anything,  except  her  inno- 
cence, that  appealed  to  me  for  protection.  On  the  con- 
trary, she  struck  me  as  a  creature  of  high  courage  and 
defiance.  That,  of  course,  was  what  constituted  the  dan- 
ger. She  would  insist  on  taking  risks.  Presently  I  heard 
myself  saying,  "Yes,  the  Close,  Canterbury.  I've  got  that. 
But  where  am  I  to  find  you  here  ?" 

She  gave  me  an  address  that  made  me  whistle. 

I  asked  her  if  she  knew  anything,  anything  whatever, 
about  the  people  of  the  house  ? 

She  said  she  didn't.  She  had  chosen  it  because  it  had  a 
nice  green  door,  and  there  was  an  Angora  cat  on  the  door- 
step. A  large  orange  cat  with  green  eyes. 

Had  she  actually  taken  rooms  there  ? 

~No.  But  she  had  chosen  them  (I  think  she  said  because 
they  had  pretty  chintz  curtains.)  She  was  going  to  take 
them  now. 

She  had  her  hand  on  the  door.  She  was  eager,  like  a 
child  that  has  got  off  at  last,  after  irritating  delay. 

I  closed  the  door  against  her  precipitate  flight.  I  said 
I  thought  we  could  settle  that  here,  over  the  telephone. 

And  I  settled  it. 

Having  settled  it,  I  sent  Pavitt,  my  man,  to  get  rooms 
for  her  that  afternoon  in  Hampstead,  with  his  sister-in- 
law,  in  a  house  overlooking  the  Heath.  I  said  I  couldn't 
promise  her  chintz  curtains  and  a  green  door  and  an  orange 


MY  BOOK  17 

Angora  cat  with  green  eyes,  but  I  thought  she  would  be 
fairly  comfortable  with  Mrs.  Pavitt. 

She  was. 

She  told  me  a  week  later  that  the  Hampstead  rooms 
had  chintz  curtains  and  there  was  a  Persian  kitten  too.  A 
blue  Persian,  with  yellow  eyes. 

There  was.    But  I  didn't  tell  her  who  put  them  there. 

The  kitten  alone  (it  was  a  pure-bred  Persian)  cost  me 
three  guineas ;  and  to  this  day  she  thinks  that  Pavitt,  who 
brought  it  to  her,  found  it  on  the  Heath. 

Yet,  with  all  my  precautions,  there  was  trouble  when 
Canterbury  heard  about  my  typist.  (She  had  become  my 
typist,  though  I  had  never  said  a  word  about  engaging 
her.) 

This,  of  course,  was  owing  to  the  criminal  secrecy  with 
which  Viola  conducted  her  affairs.  The  Minor  Canon 
wrote  to  me  as  if  I  had  seduced,  or  was  about  to  seduce,  his 
daughter.  (He  had  upset  himself  by  rushing  up  to  take 
her  back  to  Canterbury,  and  finding  that  she  wouldn't  go 
with  him.)  I  think,  in  his  excitement,  he  ordered  me  to 
give  her  up.  He  was  a  guileless  and  indeed  a  holy  man ; 
and  it's  always  the  guileless  and  the  holy  people  who  raise 
the  uncleanest  scandals.  And  Mrs.  Thesiger  wrote,  and 
the  General  and  the  Dean;  and  I've  no  doubt  the  Arch- 
bishop would  have  written  too,  if  I  hadn't  unearthed  my 
General  at  his  club,  and  asked  him  if  he  knew  the 
Thesigers,  and  found  out  that  he  did,  and  implored  him  to 
arrange  the  horrid  business  for  me  as  best  he  could.  I 
said  he  might  tell  them  that  if  the  girl  had  been  left  to 
them  to  look  after  her,  she  would  have  got  into  rooms  in — 
I  named  the  street,  and  testified  to  the  sinister  character 
of  the  house.  And  my  General  wrote  and  explained  to 
the  other  General  and  to  the  Minor  Canon  what  a  thor- 
oughly nice  chap  I  was,  and  how  lamentably  they  had  mis- 


i8  THE  BELFRY 

understood  what  I  believed  he  was  pleased  to  call  my  re- 
lations with  Miss  Thesiger.  I'm  not  at  all  sure  that  he 
didn't  even  go  farther  and  stick  in  a  lot  about  my  family, 
and  suggest  that  I  was  eligible  to  the  extent  that,  though 
my  fortunes  were  still  to  make,  I  had  (besides  private 
means  that  enabled  me  to  live  in  spite  of  journalism)  con- 
siderable expectations  (he  knew  an  aunt  of  mine — better, 
it  would  seem,  than  I  did).  In  short,  that  I  was  a  thor- 
oughly nice  chap,  and  that  the  father  of  seven  daughters 
(five  unmarried)  might  do  far  worse  than  cultivate  my  ac- 
quaintance. He  must  have  gone  quite  as  far  as  that,  or 
farther,  otherwise  I  couldn't  account  for  the  peculiarly 
tender  note  that  the  Minor  Canon  put  into  the  letter  of 
apology  that  he  wrote  me,  still  less  for  the  invitation  I 
received  by  the  same  post  from  Mrs.  Thesiger  to  spend 
Whitsuntide  with  them  at  Canterbury.  (Viola  had  said 
she  was  going  home  for  Whitsuntide.) 

Dear  lady,  she  was  herself  the  daughter  of  a  Canon,  and 
she  had  lived  all  her  life  in  a  cathedral  close,  and  the 
atmosphere  of  a  cathedral  close  may  foster  innocence,  but 
I  cannot  think  it  could  have  been  entirely  responsible  for 
the  kind  of  indiscretion  Mrs.  Thesiger  was  guilty  of. 
Neither  do  I  think  Mrs.  Thesiger  was  entirely  responsible 
herself.  She  is  a  nice  woman,  and  I  am  sure  she  couldn't 
have  written  as  she  did  unless  my  friend  the  General  had 
led  her  to  believe  that  there  was  some  sort  of  an  under- 
standing between  me  and  Viola.  But  still,  for  all  she 
knew  about  me,  I  might  have  been  a  villain.  Not  perhaps 
the  gross  villain  the  Minor  Canon  took  me  for,  but  a  vil- 
lain in  some  profound  and  subtle  way  inappreciable  to 
my  friend  the  General. 

Well,  of  course  I  didn't  spend  Whitsuntide  with  the 
Thesigers  at  Canterbury.  It  would  have  been  sheer  waste 
of  Viola.  For  the  worst  of  all  this  confounded  rumpus 


MY  BOOK  19 

was  that  it  made  me  put  off  proposing  to  Viola  till  she 
had  forgotten  all  about  it.  She  would  never  have  listened 
to  me  while  the  trail  of  the  scandal  still  lingered. 

In  fact,  it  was  only  the  marked  coldness  of  my  manner 
to  her  just  then  that  saved  me. 

It  saved  me  to  suffer.  I  didn't  know  it  was  possible  to 
suffer  as  she  made  me  suffer — I  mean  as  they  made  me, 
between  them. 

It  didn't  begin  all  at  once.  It  didn't  begin,  really,  for 
another  three  months,  the  end  of  those  six  months  that 
Jevons  had  given  himself.  Not  even  then.  Not,  you  may 
say,  for  a  whole  year ;  because  he  gave  himself  another  six 
months  as  soon  as  he  saw  her.  He  was  always  giving  him- 
self these  periods  of  time,  as  if,  with  his  mania  for  taking 
risks,  he  was  always  having  some  prodigious  bet  on  him- 
self. I  never  knew  a  man  back  his  own  enterprises  as  he 
did. 

But  until  he  turned  up  again  I  was  happy.  I  say  I,  not 
we.  I  don't  know  whether  Viola  was  happy  or  not,  though 
she  looked  it.  I  had  enough  sense  to  see  that  her  happi- 
ness, if  she  was  happy,  had  nothing  to  do  with  me  except 
in  so  far  as  I  was  the  humble  means,  under  Providence, 
of  the  definite  escape  from  Canterbury. 

For  I  very  soon  saw  what  had  been  the  matter  with 
her.  She  was  one  of  nine,  the  youngest  but  one  of  seven 
daughters.  The  Minor  Canon  had  only  been  able  to  edu- 
cate one  of  the  seven  properly,  because  he  had  had  a  son 
at  Sandhurst,  and  the  other  was  still  reading  for  the  Bar, 
which  is  pretty  expensive  too  if  you're  as  amiably  stupid 
as  Bertie  Thesiger.  (I  mention  Bertie  because,  though  he 
doesn't  come  into  this  story,  his  stupidity  and  his  amiabil- 
ity combined  to  tighten  the  situation  considerably  for 
Viola.)  And  Mrs.  Thesiger  had  only  been  able  to  marry 


20  THE  BELFRY 

off  two  of  her  seven  daughters.  Of  the  others,  one  (the 
one  who  had  been  to  Girton)  was  a  High  School  teacher  in 
Canterbury  and  she  lived  at  home ;  one  was  a  trained  nurse 
and  lived  at  home  between  cases ;  that  left  three  girls  liv- 
ing continually  at  home  and,  as  Viola  put  it,  eating  their 
heads  off. 

These  were  the  circumstances  which  Viola  (with  some 
omissions)  recited  by  way  of  justification  for  her  revolt ; 
the  fact  being  that  she  would  have  revolted  anyway.  She 
was,  as  I  have  said,  a  creature  of  high  courage  and  vitality 
and  she  was  tied  up  much  too  tight  in  that  Cathedral  Close, 
besides  being  much  too  well  fed;  and  she  longed  to  do 
things.  To  do  them  with  her  hands  and  with  her  head. 
She  was  tired  of  playing  tennis  on  the  velvet  lawns  of 
the  Canons'  gardens;  she  was  tired  of  calling  on  the 
Canons'  wives  and  talking  to  their  daughters.  I  am  aware 
that  Canterbury  is  a  garrison  town  and  that  other  re- 
sources, and  other  prospects,  I  suppose,  were  open  to  Viola. 
But  Viola  was  tired  of  talking  to  the  garrison.  I  think 
she  would  have  been  tired  in  any  case,  even  if  the  garrison 
hadn't  been  bespoken,  as  it  were,  by  her  unmarried  sisters. 
(It  is,  humanly  speaking,  impossible  that,  even  in  a  garri- 
son town,  seven  sisters  will  all  marry  into  the  Service,  as 
I  fatuously  supposed  Mrs.  Thesiger  must  have  realized 
when  she  asked  me  to  Canterbury.)  It  always  bored  Viola 
to  do  what  her  family  did,  and  what  her  family,  just  be- 
cause they  did  it,  expected  her  to  do.  And  somehow,  in 
the  long  hours  spent  in  the  Cathedral  Close,  she  had 
acquired  a  taste  for  what  she  called  "literature,"  what  she 
innocently  believed  to  be  literature.  She  was  of  an  en- 
gaging innocence  in  this  respect;  so  that  typing  authors' 
manuscripts  appealed  to  her  as  a  vocation  that  combined 
one  of  the  highest  forms  of  cerebral  activity  with  I  don't 
know  what  glamour  of  romantic  adventure. 


MY  BOOK  21 

Her  enthusiasm,  her  veneration  for  the  written  word 
made  her  an  admirable  typist.  But  not  all  at  once.  To 
say  that  she  brought  to  her  really  horrible  task  a  respect, 
a  meticulous  devotion,  would  give  you  no  idea  of  the 
child's  attitude;  it  was  a  blind,  savage  superstition  that 
would  have  been  exasperating  if  it  had  not  been  so  heart- 
rending. It  cleared  gradually  until  it  became  intelligent 
co-operation. 

I  trained  her  for  six  months. 

I  don't  suppose  I  ever  worked  harder  than  I  did  in  that 
first  half  year  of  her.  I  mean  my  output  was  never 
greater.  For  every  blessed  thing  I  wrote  was  an  excuse 
for  going  to  see  her,  or  for  her  coming  to  see  me.  It  was 
a  perpetual  journeying  between  my  rooms  in  Brunswick 
Square  and  her  rooms  in  Hampstead  overlooking  the 
Heath.  The  more  I  wrote  the  more  I  saw  of  her. 

I  trained  her  for  six  months — until  Jevons  was  ready 
for  her. 

When  I  tell  you  that  she  reverenced  my  performances 
you  may  imagine  in  what  spirit  she  approached  his. 

For  their  meeting,  as  for  what  happened  afterwards,  I 
alone  am  responsible.  I  brought  it  on  myself.  By  sheer 
quixotic  fuss  and  interference  with  what,  after  all,  wasn't 
my  affair.  For  little  Jevons  most  decidedly  was  not.  I 
might  easily  have  let  that  sleeping  dog  lie.  He  certainly 
did  sleep,  in  some  obscure  kennel  of  London ;  he  had  slept 
ever  since  I  had  left  him  at  the  door  of  that  restaurant  in 
Soho.  He  slept  almost  for  the  six  months  he  had  then 
given  himself. 

And  then,  before  (according  to  his  own  schedule)  he 
was  quite  due,  he  appeared  in  the  columns  (in  my  col- 
umns) of  the  Morning  Standard.  I  had  almost  forgotten 
his  existence;  but  when  I  saw  his  name,  James  Tasker 
Jevons,  stick  out  familiarly  under  the  big  headlines,  I 


22  THE  BELFRY 

remembered  that  that  name,  on  a  card  with  an  address, 
had  been  lying  in  my  left-hand  writing-table  drawer  all 
this  time ;  I  remembered  that  it  was  there  because  he  had 
lent  me  half  a  crown,  and  that  I  had  never  paid  him. 
Then  he  came  back  to  me — he  lived  again. 

I  sent  him  a  postal  order  and  an  apology.  I  referred, 
very  handsomely  as  I  thought,  to  his  cuckoo's  nesting  in 
my  paper.  (I  informed  him,  in  fact,  that  he  "did  it"  bet- 
ter than  I  did)  ;  and  because  I  had  worked  myself  up  to 
a  pitch  of  affability  and  generosity,  I  asked  him  to  come 
and  see  me  at  such  time  as  he  should  be  free.  And  be- 
cause, also,  I  was  indifferent  and  lazy  and  didn't  want  to 
be  seriously  bothered  with  him,  instead  of  asking  him  to 
lunch  or  dine  with  me,  I  said  I  was  generally  free  myself 
between  four  and  five. 

Between  four  and  five  was  an  hour  when  Viola  was  very 
apt  to  come  in. 

In  the  instant  that  followed  the  posting  of  that  letter  I 
saw  what  I  had  done.  And  I  wrote  to  him  the  next  day 
asking  him  to  dinner,  in  order  that  he  should  not  come  in 
between  four  and  five.  For  some  weeks,  whenever  I  fan- 
cied he  was  about  due  at  four  o'clock,  I  wrote  and  asked 
him  to  dinner.  That  was  how  I  fastened  him  to  me. 
There  wasn't  any  sense  in  which  he  fastened  on  me.  I 
wasn't  by  any  means  his  only  hope. 

I  may  say  at  once  I  was  prostrated  as  any  slave  before 
his  conversation. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  radiance  of  his  twinkle  when 
he  told  me  he  had  been  sacked  three  weeks  ago  from  the 
sporting  paper  that  had  provided  him  with  his  sole  visible 
means  of  subsistence.  It  was  his  blessed  (only  he  didn't 
call  it  blessed)  style  that  had  dishe4  him:  the  suicidal 
elan  that  he  brought  to  the  business.  He  was  warned,  he 
said.  He  was  aware  that  his  existence  as  a  reporter  hung 


MY  BOOK  23 

by  the  bare  thread  of  statement  (wearing  thinner  and 
thinner)  on  which  he  weaved  his  fantastic  web.  His  edi- 
tor told  him  he  was  engaged  to  report  football,  not  to  play 
it  with  the  paper.  But  he  couldn't  help  it.  He  had  got, 
he  said,  the  ensanguined  habit.  Still,  I  was  not  to  im- 
agine that  he  bungled  things.  He  jolly  well  knew  his 
way  about.  In  his  wildest  flights  there  was  a  homing 
impulse;  he  was  preparing  a  place  for  himself  all  the 
time  (that  it  happened  to  be  my  place  didn't  seem  to 
afflict  him  in  the  least).  Like  St.  Paul,  he  knew  how  to 
abound  and  he  knew  how  to  abstain.  His  abstinence,  in 
fact,  gave  the  measure  of  his  abundance.  He  held  himself 
in  for  five  perilous  weeks;  and  when  he  let  himself  rip 
again  it  was  with  a  burst  that  landed  him  in  the  front 
page  of  the  Morning  Standard. 

What  he  sketched  for  me  had  no  resemblance  to  the 
career  of  a  peaceful  man  of  letters.  It  was  a  hot  race,  a 
combat  as  bloody  (his  own  word)  as  those  contests  of 
which  he  was  the  delighted  eye-witness. 

He  had  come  thin  and  worn  out  of  the  struggle,  but 
you  gathered  that  he  had  borne  himself  in  it  with  coolness 
and  deliberate  caution.  His  phrases  produced  a  false  ef- 
fect of  vehemence  and  excitement.  You  saw  that  he  had 
simply  followed  out  a  calculated  scheme,  not  one  step  of 
which  had  miscarried.  And  you  felt  that  his  most  pas- 
sionate affairs  would  be  conducted  with  the  same  formida- 
ble precision. 

I  ought  to  have  felt  it.  For  we  were  precious  soon  in 
the  thick  of  it — of  his  most  passionate  affair. 

I  had  dined  him,  I  suppose,  about  three  times,  and  I 
had  lunched  him  twice.  And  I  had  had  tea  with  him 
once  in  his  bedroom.  He  was  living  in  one  room  in  a 
street  off  the  Euston  Road,  and  he  called  it  his  bedroom 
because  it  looked  so  much  more  that  than  anything  else. 


24  THE  BELFRY 

I  might  have  let  it  go  at  that.  But  I  didn't.  I  had  seen 
his  bedroom.  I  took  the  liberty  of  inquiring  into  his 
finances.  They  were,  he  said,  as  yet  undeveloped.  He 
had  a  scheme  of  his  own  for  improving  them,  but  while 
it  was  maturing  he  was,  he  certainly  was  open  to  offers  of 
work.  I  got  him  some  translation.  (He  was  a  fairly  good 
French  scholar.) 

Then — it  was  the  fatality  of  the  proceedings  that  im- 
pressed them  on  my  memory — then  (I  forgot  to  say  that 
at  that  time  I  was  reader  to  a  firm  of  publishers;  these 
things  are  in  themselves  so  inessential  to  this  story)  I 
turned  over  to  him  any  books  that  came  more  into  his 
province  than  mine.  His  province,  I  can  tell  you,  was 
pretty  extensive,  too. 

He  began  by  doing  me  the  honour  to  consult  me  about 
any  instances  that  seemed  doubtful. 

And  so — you  see  how  carefully  I  had  prepared  his  path 
for  him — one  afternoon  he  turned  up  at  my  rooms,  un- 
invited, between  four  and  five.  He  said  he  remembered 
I  had  told  him  I  should  be  free  at  that  hour. 

He  remembered.  Yes;  I  don't  think  Tasker  Jevons 
ever  forgot  anything,  anything  likely  to  be  useful  to  him, 
in  his  life. 

And  he  hadn't  been  with  me  ten  minutes  before  Viola 
Thesiger  came  in. 

He  was  saying,  "Why  the  Heaven-afflicted  idiot"  (his 

author)  "should  think  it  necessary "  when  Viola  came 

in. 

She  came  in,  and  suddenly  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
she  was  beautiful.  I  hadn't  seen  it  before.  I  don't  know 
why  I  saw  it  now.  It  may  have  been  some  turn  of  her 
small,  squarish  head  that  surprised  me  with  subtle  tender- 
nesses and  curves;  or  more  likely  it  may  have  been  her 
effect  on  him.  I  may  have  seen  her  with  his  eyes.  I 


MY  BOOK  25 

don't  know — I  don't  know.  I  hardly  like  to  think  he  saw 
anything  in  her  I  hadn't  seen  first. 

He  stopped  talking.  They  looked  at  each  other.  I 
introduced  him.  Not  to  have  introduced  him  would  have 
struck  him  as  a  slight. 

I  ordered  tea  at  once  in  the  hope  of  hastening  his  de- 
parture. He  had  been  curiously  silent  since  she  had  come 
in. 

But  he  didn't  go.  He  just  sat  there,  saying  nothing,  but 
looking  at  her  furtively  now  and  again,  and  blinking,  as 
if  looking  at  her  hurt  him.  Whenever  she  said  anything 
he  stared,  with  his  mouth  a  little  open,  breathing  heavily. 

She  hadn't  paid  very  much  attention  to  him.  Then,  sud- 
denly, as  if  intrigued  by  his  silence,  she  said : 

"Who  is  the  Heaven-afflicted  idiot  ?" 

I  said,  "Ask  Mr.  Jevons." 

She  did. 

Jevons  didn't  answer  her.  He  simply  looked  at  her  and 
blinked.  Then  he  looked  away  again. 

"Come,"  I  said,  "you  might  finish  what  you  were  going 
to  say." 

"I  don't  know,"  he  muttered,  "that  I  was  going  to  say 
anything — Oh  yes — that  thing  you  sent  me.  Why  the 
silly  blighter  should  suppose  it's  necessary  to  stick  in  a 
storm  at  sea  when  it's  quite  obvious  he  hasn't  seen  one — 
he  talks  about  a  brig  when  he  means  a  bark,  and  from  the 
way  he  navigates  her  you'd  say  the  wind  blew  all  ways  at 
once  in  the  Atlantic." 

I  said  it  might  for  all  I  knew ;  and  I  asked  him  if  he'd 
ever  seen  a  storm  at  sea  himself. 

It  seemed  he  had.  He'd  been  ordered  a  sea-voyage  for 
his  health  after  his  spell  of  printing;  and  his  uncle,  who 
was  a  sea-captain,  took  him  with  him  to  Hong-Kong  in  his 
ship.  And  he  had  been  all  through  a  cyclone  in  the  Pacific. 


26  THE  BELFRY 

I  got  him — with  some  difficulty,  for  he  had  become  ex- 
tremely shy — I  got  him  to  tell  us  about  it. 

He  did.  And  by  the  time  he  had  finished  with  us  we 
had  all  been  through  a  cyclone  in  the  Pacific. 

It  was  too  much.  The  little  beast  could  talk  almost  as 
well  as  he  wrote.  A  fellow  who  can  write  like  Tasker 
Jevons  has  no  business  to  talk  at  all. 

Viola  left  soon  after  six.  He  had  outstayed  her.  I  went 
downstairs  with  her.  When  I  came  back  to  him  he  was 
still  staring  at  the  doorway  she  had  passed  through. 

"Who's  that  girl  ?"  he  said. 

I  said  she  was  my  typist. 

He  meditated,  and  brought  out  as  the  result:  "Do 
you  mind  telling  me  how  much  she  charges  you  ?" 

I  told  him.    He  looked  dejected. 

"I  can't  afford  her,"  he  said  presently.  "No.  I  can't 
possibly  afford  her.  Not  yet."  He  paused.  "Do  you 
mind  giving  me  her  address  ?" 

"I  thought  you  said  you  couldn't  afford  her?" 

"I  can't.  Not  yet.  But  I  will  afford  her.  I  will.  I 
give  myself  another — "  He  stopped.  His  mouth  fell 
ajar,  and  I  saw  his  lips  moving  as  he  went  through  some 
inaudible  calculation — "another  six  months." 

He  hid  his  face  in  his  hands  and  ran  his  fingers  through 
his  hair.  Then,  as  if  he  conceived  himself  to  be  unob- 
served behind  this  shelter,  he  let  himself  go ;  and  I  became 
the  witness  of  an  agony,  a  passion,  a  self-abandoned  naked- 
ness, to  the  utter  shedding  of  all  reticences  and  decencies, 
with  nothing  but  those  thin  hands  and  that  hair  between 
me  and  it. 

"I'll  work,"  he  said.  "I'll  work  like  a  hundred  bloody 
niggers.  Like  ten  hundred  thousand  million  sweated  tail- 
ors in  a  stinking  cellar.  I'll  pinch.  I'll  skimp  and  save. 
I'll  deny  myself  butter.  I'll  wear  celluloid  collars  and 


MY  BOOK  27 

sell  my  dress-suit.  My  God !  I'd  sell  the  coat  off  my  back 
and  the  shoes  off  my  feet ;  I'd  sell  my  own  mother's  body 
off  her  death-bed,  and  go  without  my  dinner  for  nine 
months  to  see  her  again  for  five  minutes.  Just  to  see  her 
for  five  minutes.  Five  (unprintable)  little  minutes  that 
another  man  wouldn't  know  what  to  do  with,  wouldn't  use 
for  tying  up  a  bootlace  in." 

Pause. 

"I  didn't  know  it  hurt.  I  didn't  know  a  girl's  face 
could  land  you  one  like  this,  and  her  eyes  jab  you,  and 
her  voice  turn  round  and  round  in  your  stomach  like  a 
circular  saw.  That's  what  it  feels  like.  Exactly. 

"Dry  up,  you  old  Geyser,  yourself.  I'm  getting  it,  not 
you.  You'd  spout  if  you'd  had  to  sit  tight  with  all  the  gas 
in  the  shop  blazing  away  under  you  for  the  last  hour.  If 
you  can  turn  it  off  at  the  meter,  turn  it.  I  can't.  No,  I 
won't  have  another  cup  of  tea.  And  I  won't  get  up  and 
clear  out,  I'm  going  to  sit  here  another  five  minutes.  I'm 
not  well,  I  tell  you,  and  it  relieves  me  to  talk  about  it.  I 
don't  care  if  you  don't  listen.  Or  if  you  do.  I'm  past 
caring. 

"D'you  notice  that  I  didn't  speak  a  word  to  her — not 
one  blessed  word  the  whole  time?  I  should  have  choked 
if  I'd  tried  to.  I  didn't  want  to  look  at  her,  to  think  of 
her.  That's  why  I  told  that  rotten  story,  just  to  keep  my- 
self going.  What  a  blethering  idiot  she  must  have  thought 
me!  What  a  putrid  ass!  The  sea — And  me! 

"And  the  way  she  looked  at  me " 

I  said,  "D'you  mean  to  say,  Jevons,  it  didn't  happen  ?" 

And  he  groaned.  "Oh,  it  happened  all  right.  I  can't 
invent  things  to  save  my  life. 

"God !  It  isn't  even  as  if  she  was  pretty.  I  could  un- 
derstand that/' 

He  grabbed  his  throat  suddenly  and  began  to  cough. 


28  THE  BELFRY 

I  tried  to  be  kind  to  him.  "Look  here,"  I  said,  "old 
chap.  I'm  awfully  sorry  if  it  takes  you  this  way.  But 
it's  no  good." 

He  turned  on  me  coughing  and  choking.  I  cannot  re- 
member all  he  said  or  half  the  things  he  called  me,  but 
it  was  something  like  this:  "You  snivelling  defective." 
(Cough)  "You  septic  idiot."  (Cough)  "You  poisonous 
and  polluted  ass."  (Cough,  cough,  cough)  "You  scarlet 
imbecile."  (I  have  to  water  down  the  increasing  richness 
of  his  epithets.)  "You  last  diminutive  purple  embryo  of 
an  epileptic  stock,  do  you  suppose  I  don't  know  that  ? 

"!No  good  ?  Of  course  it's  no  good — yet.  I  got  to  wait 
for  another  six  months.  And  you  can  take  it  from  me,  if 
a  fellow  knows  what  he  wants,  and  doesn't  try  to  get  it — 
doesn't  know  how  to  get  it — in  six  months — and  doesn't 
find  out — lies  no  good,  if  you  like." 

These  words  didn't  strike  me  at  the  time  as  having  any 
personal  application.  He  was  to  repeat  them  later  on, 
however,  in  circumstances  which  I  defy  anybody  to  have 
foreseen. 

I  cannot  recall  the  precise  phases  of  their  remarkable 
friendship.  I  wasn't  present  at  its  earliest  stages. 

I  had  my  first  intimation  of  its  existence  one  evening 
in  the  winter  of  nineteen-five,  when  he  dropped  in  on  me 
to  consult  me,  he  said,  about  a  rather  delicate  matter,  in 
which  I  gathered  there  lurked  for  his  inexperience  the 
most  frightful  pitfalls  of  offence.  That  he  should  come  to 
me  in  this  spirit  was  evidence  that  a  certain  chastening 
had  been  going  on  in  him. 

The  delicate  matter  was  this.  He  had  given  Miss 
Thesiger  a  lot  of  work,  the  typing  of  a  whole  book,  in  fact. 
And — he  had  immense  difficulty  in  getting  to  this  part  of 
it — she  had  refused  to  take  any  payment.  She  had  got 


MY  BOOK  29 

It  into  her  head  that  he  was  hard  up.  He  had  sent  her 
a  cheque  three  times,  and  three  times  she  had  returned 
it.  She  was  as  obstinate  as  a  mule  about  it.  And  now 
she  was  saying  that  she  had  never  meant  him  to  pay  her ; 
she  had  done  the  whole  thing  out  of  friendship,  which,  of 
course,  was  very  pretty  of  her,  but  it  put  him  in  a  beastly 
position.  He'd  never  been  precisely  in  that  position  be- 
fore and  he  didn't  know  what  to  do  about  it.  He  didn't 
want  to  offend  her  and  yet  he  didn't  see — did  I? — how 
he  could  let  her  do  it.  It  was,  he  said,  all  the  wrong 
way  about,  according  to  his  notions.  And  for  the  life  of 
him  he  didn't  know  what  to  do.  It  might  seem  to  me 
incredible  that  such  virgin  innocence  as  his  should  exist 
in  a  world  where  the  rules  for  most  sorts  of  conduct  were 
fairly  settled.  He  had  lived  all  his  life  in  an  atmosphere 
of  births,  marriages  and  deaths,  and  he  knew  all  the  rules 
for  the  registration  of  them.  And  that  was  about  all  he 
did  know.  And  it  was  the  most  infernally  hard  luck  to 
be  stumped  like  this  at  the  very  beginning,  just  when  he 
wanted  most  awfully  to  do  the  right  thing. 

Besides,  it  had  knocked  him  all  to  bits — the  sheer  pret- 
tiness  of  it. 

He  laid  bare  for  me  all  the  curious  intricacies  of  a  soul 
tortured  by  its  own  delicacy.  There  was  agony  in  his  eyes. 

If  he  were  to  take  this  kindness  from  a  lady — would  it, 
in  my  opinion,  or  would  it  not,  be  cricket  ? 

I  didn't  like  to  tell  him  that  he  had  brought  his  agony 
on  himself  by  his  imprudence  in  employing  a  typist  when 
he  couldn't  afford  one.  So  I  only  said  that,  if  I  knew  the 
lady,  he  would  find  her  uncommonly  hard  to  move. 

He  hadn't  any  hope,  he  said,  of  moving  her ;  but  did  I 
think  that  if  he  made  her  a  present — say,  the  Collected 
Works  of  George  Meredith,  it  would  meet  the  case  ? 

I  said  it  would  meet  the  case  all  right,  but  that  in  my 


30  THE  BELFRY 

opinion  it  would  spoil  its  prettiness.  If  Miss  Thesiger 
didn't  want  to  be  paid  in  one  way,  she  wouldn't  at  all  care 
about  being  paid  in  another.  Perhaps  Miss  Thesiger  liked 
being  pretty.  Hadn't  he  better  leave  it  at  that,  anyhow, 
for  the  present  ? 

You  see  I  looked  on  Viola  and  Viola's  behaviour  as  in- 
finitely more  my  concern  than  his.  I  found  myself  reply- 
ing for  her  as  she  would  have  wished  me  to  reply,  as  if 
I  could  claim  an  intenser  appreciation  of  her  motives  than 
was  his,  as  if  she  and  I  were  agreed  about  this  question  of 
helping  Tasker  Jevons  and  I  were  the  custodian  of  her 
generosity. 

He  said  he  supposed  it  wouldn't  hurt  him  to  leave  it  at 
that.  It  wasn't  as  if  it  wouldn't  be  all  one  in  the  long  run. 
He  gave  himself  three  months. 

I  supposed  he  meant  to  pay  her  in. 

Three  weeks  later  I  heard  that  Jevons  was  actually  liv- 
ing up  in  Hampstead  in  the  same  house  as  Viola.  I  didn't 
hear  it  from  Viola,  but  from  my  man,  Pavitt,  who  had  it 
from  his  sister-in-law.  And  what  Pavitt  came  to  tell  me 
was  that  Mr.  Jevons  had  been  ill. 

I  went  up  to  Hampstead  that  afternoon  to  see  him. 

I  found  him  in  a  back  room,  at  the  top  of  the  house, 
sitting  by  the  fire  in  an  easy-chair,  wrapped  in  a  blanket. 
He  was  as  thin  as  a  lath  and  his  face  was  a  bright  yellow. 
The  very  whites  of  his  eyes  were  yellow.  I  would  have 
said  you  never  saw  a  more  miserable  object,  but  that 
Jevons  was  not  miserable.  He  was  happy.  And  as  far 
as  his  devastated  condition  would  allow  him,  he  looked 
happy.  This  face,  yellow  with  jaundice,  was  doing  its 
best  to  smile.  The  smile  was  a  grimace,  not  an  affair  of 
the  lips  at  all,  but  of  the  deep  crescent  lines  drawn  at  right 
angles  to  them.  Still,  he  was  smiling.  In  a  sort  of  ecstasy. 

He  was  smiling  at  Viola,  who  sat  in  the  chair  facing 


MY  BOOK  31 

him  on  the  other  side  of  the  hearth.  She  looked  as  if  she 
had  been  there  for  ages.  Also,  as  if  she  had  been  sitting 
up  all  night 

She  was  smiling  too,  straight  at  Jevons.  What  I  saw 
was  the  beatitude  of  his  response. 

He  tried  to  smile  at  me,  too,  as  I  came  in,  but  the  effort 
was  a  failure.  He  wasn't  really  a  bit  glad  to  see  me. 

Viola  got  up  and  left  me  with  him.  I  wasn't  to  stay 
with  him  for  more  than  ten  minutes,  she  said.  It  was  the 
first  day  he  had  been  allowed  to  sit  up. 

I  sat  with  him  for  fifteen  minutes. 

He  was  lodged,  as  before,  in  one  room ;  but  its  domestic 
character  was  disguised  by  many  ingenious  devices  giving 
you  the  idea  that  it  was  nothing  but  his  study. 

Well,  there  he  was,  haggard  and  yellow  with  jaundice, 
utterly  pitiable  as  to  his  appearance  and  surroundings; 
and  yet  he  looked  at  me  in,  positively,  a  sort  of  triumph, 
as  much  as  to  say,  "Yes.  Here  I  am.  And  you,  with  all 
your  superior  resources,  haven't  managed  half  so  well." 

And  I  thought  that  he  (not  knowing  Viola  so  well  as  I 
did)  was  suffering  from  a  lamentable  delusion. 

He  said  she  had  been  awfully  good  to  him.  But  it  was 
rather  hard  luck  on  him,  wasn't  it,  that  he  should  have 
gone  and  turned  this  beastly  colour  ? 

I  said  rather  loftily  I  didn't  suppose  it  mattered  to  Viola 
what  colour  he  turned. 

(What  could  it  matter  to  her  ?) 

She  came  in  presently  and  took  me  down  to  her  sitting- 
room,  and  gave  me  tea.  She  owned  to  having  sat  up  three 
nights  with  Jevons.  She  couldn't  have  believed  it  possible 
that  anybody  could  be  so  ill.  For  three  days  and  three 
nights  the  poor  thing  hadn't  been  able  to  keep  anything 
down — not  even  a  drop  of  water.  But  to-day  she  had  been 
feeding  him  on  the  whites  of  eggs  beaten  up  with  brandy. 


32  THE  BELFRY 

She  seemed  to  me  to  be  obsessed  with  Jevons's  illness, 
and  I  made  her  come  out  with  me  for  ten  minutes  for  a 
blow  on  the  Heath.  I  tried  to  lead  her  mind  to  other 
things,  and  she  listened  politely.  Then  there  was  silence, 
and  presently  I  felt  her  arm  slide  into  mine  (she  had  these 
adorable  impulses  of  confidence). 

"Furny,"  she  said,  "what  does  jaundice  come  from  ?" 

I  said  it  generally  came  from  chill. 

She  frowned,  as  if  she  were  not  satisfied  with  that  ex- 
planation. And  there  was  another  silence.  Then  she 
began  again: 

"Would  being  unhappy — very,  very  unhappy — give  it 
you?" 

I  thought  I  saw  how  her  mind  was  working  and  I  ad- 
vised her  to  put  that  idea  out  of  her  head.  Happiness,  I 
said,  wouldn't  be  good  for  Jevons. 

She  said,  "Oh,  wouldn't  it!"  And,  after  prolonged 
meditation,  "I  wonder  if  he'll  stay  that  funny  yellow 
colour  all  his  life." 

I  found  out  from  her  that  he  had  been  living  in  that 
top  room  above  hers  for  three  weeks — ever  since  he  had 
finished  his  book.  It  looked  as  if  he  had  become  frantic 
when  he  saw  the  end  of  his  pretexts  and  occasions  for  meet- 
ing her,  and  had  cast  off  all  prudence  and  had  followed 
her,  determined  to  live  under  the  same  roof. 

I  looked  on  it  as  a  madness  that  possessed  him. 

But  that  it  should  ever  possess  her — that  was  incon- 
ceivable. 


n 

HE  recovered. 

The  brilliant  orange  of  his  jaundice  faded  to  lemon,  and 
the  lemon  to  a  sallow  tint  that  cleared  rapidly  as  it  was 
flooded  by  his  flush. 

I  did  not  realize  then  what  sources  he  was  drawing  on. 
Looking  back  on  it  all,  I  am  amazed  at  my  own  stupidity. 
I  was,  of  course,  aware  that  Viola  was  sorry  for  him ;  but 
I  might  have  known  that  a  girl's  pity  was  'not  a  stimulant 
that  would  keep  a  man  like  Jevons  going  for  very  long.  I 
am  sure  he  would  never  have  lowered  himself  by  any  ap- 
peal to  it.  Why,  the  bare  idea  of  pity  would  have  been 
intolerable  to  him,  bursting,  as  he  was,  with  vitality  and 
invading  with  the  courage  and  energy  and  genius  of  a 
conqueror  a  world  that  was  not  his. 

He  laid  before  me  very  soon  what  I  can  only  call  his 
plan  of  campaign.  Journalism  with  him  was  a  purely 
defensive  operation ;  but  the  novel  and  the  short  story  were 
his  attack.  The  work  that  Viola  had  typed  for  him  was 
his  first  novel.  He  had  dug  himself  in  very  securely  that 
winter,  and  each  paper  that  he  had  occupied  and  left  be- 
hind him  was  a  line  of  trenches  that  shifted  nearer  and 
nearer  towards  the  desired  territory.  He  didn't  begin  his 
assault  on  the  public  before  he  had  secured  his  retreat. 

I  know  I  am  writing  about  a  man  whom  many  people 
still  consider  a  great  novelist  and  a  great  playwright.  God 
knows  I  don't  want  to  disparage  him.  But  to  me  what  he 
has  written  matters  so  little ;  it  has  no  interest  for  me  ex- 

33 


34  THE  BELFRY 

cept  as  his  vehicle,  the  vehicle  in  which  he  arrived ;  which 
brought  him  to  his  destination  quicker  perhaps  than  any 
other  which  he  could  have  chosen.  His  talent  was  so  adroit 
that  he  might  have  chosen  almost  any  other;  chance  and 
a  happy  knack  and  a  habit  of  observation  determined  his 
selection  of  the  written  word.  Compared  with  the  spec- 
tacle of  his  arrival,  what  he  has  written  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  What  I  have  written  myself  is  neither  here  nor 
there.  For  the  purposes  of  this  history  it  counts  only  as 
the  means  which  enabled  me  to  witness  the  last  act  of  his 
drama. 

That  is  why  I  say  so  much  about  his  adventure,  his  cam- 
paign, his  business,  and  so  little  about  hi?  books.  In  this 
I  am  adopting  his  own  values,  almost  his  own  phrases.  He 
wanted  most  awfully  to  arrive.  How  far  he  took  himself 
seriously  as  a  writer  nobody  will  ever  know.  Viola  was 
convinced,  and  always  will  be  convinced,  that  he  was  a 
great  genius.  (There's  no  doubt  he  traded  with  her  on 
her  conviction.  He  wanted  most  awfully  to  arrive,  but 
more  than  anything  he  wanted  Viola.)  Still,  he  was  too 
clever,  I  think,  ever  to  have  quite  convinced  himself. 

His  adventure,  then,  began  with  his  reporting ;  his  cam- 
paign with  his  journalism,  and  his  earlier  novels ;  his  busi- 
ness was  to  follow  later  in  the  long  period  of  peace  and 
prosperity  he  saw  ahead  of  him. 

His  first  novel,  he  told  me,  was  calculated,  deliberately, 
to  startle  and  arrest ;  to  hit  the  public,  rather  unpleasantly, 
in  the  eye.  That,  he  said,  was  the  way  to  be  remembered. 
It  wouldn't  sell.  He  didn't  want  it  to  sell.  What  he 
wanted  first  was  to  gain  a  position ;  then  to  consolidate  it ; 
then  to  build.  He  talked  like  the  consummate  architect 
of  his  own  fortunes. 

His  second  novel  would  be  designed,  deliberately,  to 
counteract  the  disagreeable  effects  of  his  first. 


MY  BOOK  35 

"Why,"  I  asked,  "counteract  them?" 

Because,  he  said,  if  he  went  on  being  disagreeable,  he'd 
alienate  the  very  sections  of  the  public  he  most  wished  to 
gain.  His  retirement  was  simply  the  preparation  for  the 
Grand  Attack. 

It  was  in  his  third  novel  that  he  meant,  still  deliberately, 
to  come  into  his  kingdom  and  his  power  and  his  glory,  for 
ever  and  ever,  Amen.  His  third  novel,  he  declared,  would 
sell ;  and  it  would  be  his  best.  On  that  utterly  secure  and 
yet  elevated  basis  he  could  build  afterwards  pretty  much 
as  he  pleased.  I  asked  him  if  it  wasn't  a  mistake  to  put 
his  best  so  early  in  the  series?  Wouldn't  it  be  more  ef- 
fective if  he  worked  up  to  it?  But  he  said  No.  He'd 
thought  of  that.  There  wasn't  anything  he  hadn't  thought 
of.  That  third  novel  was  to  start  his  big  sales.  And  the 
worst  of  a  big  sale  was  this,  that  when  you'd  caught  your 
public  you  were  bound  to  go  on  giving  them  the  sort  of 
thing  you'd  caught  them  with,  therefore,  he'd  be  jolly  care- 
ful to  start  'em  with  the  sort  of  thing  he  happened  to  like 
himself,  otherwise  he'd  have  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life 
knuckling  under  to  them.  He  could  get  a  cheaper  glory 
if  he  chose  to  try  for  it ;  but  a  cheaper  glory  wouldn't  sat- 
isfy him.  That  was  why  he  decided  to  make  for  the  high- 
est point  he  could  reach  in  the  beginning,  so  that  his  very 
fallings-off  would  be  glorious  and  would  pay  him  as  no 
gradual  working  up  and  up  could  possibly  be  made  to  pay. 
Besides,  he  wanted  his  glory  and  his  pay  quick.  He 
couldn't  afford  to  wait  a  month  longer  than  his  third  novel. 
As  for  the  different  quality  in  the  glory  it  would  be  years 
before  anybody  but  himself  could  tell  the  difference,  and 
by  the  time  they  spotted  him  he'd  be  at  another  game.  A 
game  in  which  he  defied  anybody  to  catch  him  out. 

He'd  be  writing  plays. 

All  this  he  told  me,  sitting  in  an  arm-chair  in  my  rooms, 


36  THE  BELFRY 

with  his  feet  up  on  another  chair,  and  smiling,  smiling 
with  one  side  of  his  mouth  while  with  the  other  he  smoked 
innumerable  cigarettes.  I  can  see  his  blue  eyes  twinkle 
still,  through  the  cigarette  smoke  that  obscured  him.  That 
night  he  had  got  down  to  solid  business. 

It  was  quite  clear  that  Jevons's  business  was  the  busi- 
ness of  the  speculator  who  loves  the  excitement  of  the 
risks  he  takes.  I  remember  exhorting  him  to  prudence.  I 
said:  "This  isn't  art,  it's  speculation.  You're  taking 
considerable  risks,  my  friend." 

He  took  his  cigarette  out  of  his  mouth,  dispersed  the 
smoke,  and  looked  at  me  very  straight  and  without  a 
twinkle. 

"I've  got  to  make  money,"  he  said,  "and  to  make  it  soon. 
I  should  be  taking  worse  risks  if  I  didn't." 

It's  marvellous  how  he  has  pulled  it  off.  Just  as  he  said, 
dates  and  all.  For  he  named  the  dates  for  each  stage  of 
his  advance. 

That  was  in  March ;  about  a  week  before  Easter,  nine- 
teen-six. 

The  next  day  I  went  up  to  Hampstead  towards  teatime, 
to  see  how  Viola  was  getting  on.  I  didn't  expect  to  see 
Jevons  there,  for  he'd  left.  He  told  me  in  a  burst  of  confi- 
dence he'd  had  to.  He  couldn't  stand  it.  It  was  getting 
too  risky.  He  was  living  now  in  rooms  in  Bernard  Street, 
not  far  from  mine. 

At  Hampstead  I  was  told  that  Miss  Thesiger  was  out. 
She  had  gone  for  a  walk  on  the  Heath  with  Mr.  Jevons, 
but  they  were  coming  in  at  half-past  four  for  tea.  If  I'd 
step  upstairs  into  the  sitting-room  I'd  find  her  brother, 
Captain  Thesiger,  waiting  there. 

I  stepped  upstairs  and  found  Captain  Thesiger.    I  was 


MY  BOOK  37 

glad  to  find  him,  for  I  don't  mind  owning  that  by  this 
time  I  was  getting  somewhat  uneasy  about  Viola. 

It  was  all  very  well  for  Viola  to-  nurse  Jevons  through 
his  jaundice,  she  might  have  done  that  out  of  pure  hu- 
manity; but  she  had  no  business  to  be  going  for  walks 
with  the  little  bounder.  Even  the  charm  of  his  conversa- 
tion and  his  personality  (and  it  had  a  charm)  couldn't 
conceal  the  fact  that  he  was  a  little  bounder.  Why,  in 
moments  of  excitement  he  had  gestures  that  must  have 
made  her  shudder  all  down  her  spine,  and  more  than  once 
I  have  known  his  aitches  become  fugitive,  though,  on  the 
whole,  I  must  say  he  was  pretty  careful.  And  Viola  was 
letting  herself  in  for  him.  In  sheer  innocence  and  reck- 
lessness she  was  letting  herself  in.  I  felt  that  if  ever  it 
should  come  to  getting  her  out  I  would  be  glad  of  an  ally. 
!N"ow  that  I  saw  what  Viola  was  capable  of,  I  began  to  feel 
some  sympathy  with  her  people  at  Canterbury  who  had 
tried  so  ineffectually  to  hold  her  in. 

There  was  nothing  ineffectual  about  Reggie  Thesiger.  I 
suppose  he  would  have  been  impressive  anyway  from 
the  sheer  height  and  breadth  of  him,  his  visible  and  pal- 
pable perfection ;  but  what  "had"  me  was  not  his  perfec- 
tion, but  the  odd  likeness  to  his  sister  which  he  combined, 
and  in  some  mysterious  way  reconciled,  with  it.  His  face 
had  taken  over  not  only  the  dominant  and  defiant  look 
of  hers,  exaggerated  by  his  sheer  virility;  but  it  had  the 
very  tricks  of  her  charm,  even  to  the  uptilted  lines  of  her 
mouth ;  his  little  black  moustache  followed  and  gave  accent 
to  them.  I  said  to  myself :  "Here  is  a  young  man  who  will 
not  stand  any  nonsense." 

He  greeted  me  with  a  joy  that  I  could  not  account  for 
all  at  once  in  an  entire  stranger,  and  it  was  mixed  with  a 
childlike  and  candid  surprise.  I  wondered  what  I  had 
done  that  he  should  be  so  glad  to  see  me. 


38  THE  BELFRY 

His  manner  very  soon  left  me  in  no  doubt  as  to  what  I 
had  done.  I  had  brought  the  most  intense  relief  to  the 
Captain's  innocent  mind.  I  do  not  know  by  what  subtle 
shades  he  managed  to  convey  to  me  that,  compared  with 
the  queer  chap  I  so  easily  might  have  been,  he  found  me 
distinctly  agreeable.  It  was  obvious  that  I  existed  for 
him  only  as  the  chap,  the  strange  and  legendary  chap,  that 
Viola  had  taken  up  with,  and  that  in  this  capacity  he,  to 
his  own  amazement,  approved  of  me.  I  gathered  that, 
knowing  his  sister,  he  had  feared  the  worst,  and  that  the 
blessed  relief  of  it  was  more  than  he  could  bear  if  he  didn't 
let  himself  go  a  bit. 

He  had  quite  evidently  come,  or  had  been  sent,  to  see 
what  Viola  was  up  to.  Possibly  he  may  have  had  in  his 
mind  the  extraordinary  treatment  I  had  received  from  his 
father,  and  he  may  have  been  anxious  to  atone. 

Any  relief  that  I  might  have  brought  to  Captain 
Thesiger  was  surpassed  by  the  reassurance  that  I  took  from 
my  first  sight  of  him.  It  was  as  if  I  had  instantly  argued 
to  myself:  "This  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  has  produced 
Viola.  This  is  the  sort  of  man  she  has  been  brought  up 
with.  When  Viola  thinks  of  men  it  is  this  sort  of  man 
she  is  thinking  of.  It  is  therefore  inconceivable  that  Tasker 
Jevons  should  exist  for  her  otherwise  than  as  a  curious 
intellectual  freak.  Even  her  perversity  couldn't — no,  it 
could  not — fall  so  far  from  this  familiar  perfection." 
Though  Captain  Thesiger's  perfection  might  not  help  me 
personally,  it  did  dispose  of  little  Jevons.  Looking  at 
him,  I  felt  as  if  my  uneasiness,  you  may  say  my  jealousy, 
of  Jevons  (it  almost  amounted  to  that)  had  been  an  abom- 
inable insult  to  his  sister. 

Reggie — he  is  my  brother-in-law  now,  and  I  cannot  go 
on  calling  him  Captain  Thesiger — Reggie  was  good  enough 
to  say  that  he  had  heard  of  me  from  his  sister.  His  voice 


MY  BOOK  39 

conveyed,  without  any  vulgar  implication,  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  my  right  to  be  heard  of  from  her — but,  of  course, 
he  went  on  agreeably,  he  had  heard  of  me  in  any  case ;  he 
supposed  everybody  had.  My  celebrity  was  so  immature 
that  I  should  not  have  recognized  this  allusion  to  it  if  Reg- 
gie had  not  gone  on  even  more  genially.  He  said  he  liked 
awfully  the  things  I  did  in  the  Morning  Standard.  Most 
especially  and  enthusiastically  he  liked  my  account  of  the 
big  boxing  match  at  Olympia.  You  could  see  it  was  writ- 
ten by  a  chap  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about. 

I  had  to  confess  that  Tasker  Jevons  was  the  chap  who 
wrote  it.  Reggie,  quite  prettily  abashed,  tried  to  recover 
himself  and  plunged  further.  He  brought  up  from  his 
memory  one  thing  after  another.  And  all  his  reminis- 
cences were  of  Jevons.  He  had  mixed  us  up  hopelessly, 
as  people  did  in  those  days.  They  knew  I  was  associated 
with  the  Morning  Standard,  and  that  was  all  they  knew 
about  me ;  if  they  wanted  to  recall  anything  striking  I  had 
done,  it  was  always  Jevons  they  remembered.  Poor  Reg- 
gie was  so  inveterate  in  his  blundering  that  after  his 
fourth  desperate  effort  he  gave  it  up.  His  memory,  he 
said,  was  rotten. 

I  said,  on  the  contrary,  his  memory  for  Jevons  was  per- 
fect, and  he  looked  at  me  charmingly  and  laughed. 

While  he  was  laughing  Viola  came  in.  She  had  Jevons 
with  her. 

It  was  evident  that  neither  of  them  was  prepared  for 
Reggie  Thesiger.  They  had  let  themselves  in  with  a  latch- 
key and  come  straight  upstairs  without  encountering  Mrs. 
Pavitt. 

At  the  sight  of  her  brother  Viola  betrayed  a  feeling  I 
should  not  have  believed  possible  to  her.  For  the  first 
and  I  may  say  the  last,  time  in  my  experience  of  her,  I 
saw  Viola  show  funk. 


40  THE  BELFRY 

It  was  the  merest  tremor  of  her  tilted  mouth,  the  flicker 
of  an  eyelash,  an  almost  invisible  veiling  of  her  brilliant 
eyes ;  I  do  not  think  it  would  have  been  perceptible  to  any- 
body who  watched  her  with  a  less  tense  anxiety  than  mine. 
But  it  was  there,  and  it  hurt  me  to  see  it. 

There  was  one  person,  only  one  person,  in  the  world 
whom  Viola  was  afraid  of,  and  that  was  her  brother  Reg- 
gie.  She  was  afraid  of  him  because  she  loved  him.  He 
was  the  person  in  the  world  that  she  loved  best,  before — 
before  the  catastrophe.  And  this  fear  of  hers  that  I  alone 
saw  (Reggie  most  certainly  had  not  seen  it)  ought  to  have 
warned  me  if  nothing  else  had. 

It  probably  would  have  warned  me  but  for  what  she  did 
next;  but  for  her  whole  subsequent  behaviour. 

She  broke  loose  from  Reggie,  who  had  closed  on  her 
with  a  shout  of  "Hallo,  Vee-Vee!"  and  an  embrace;  she 
broke  loose  from  Reggie  and  turned  to  me,  all  laughing 
and  rosy  from  his  impact,  with  an  outstretched  hand  and  a 
voice  that  swept  to  me  and  rippled  with  a  sort  of  nervous 
joy.  And  she  said:  "Oh,  Wally,  this  is  nice  of  you! 
You'll  stop  for  tea." 

Her  mouth  said  that.  But  her  eyes — they  had  grown 
suddenly  pathetic — said  a  lot  more.  They  said :  "Don't 
go,  Wally,  please  don't  go.  Whatever  you  do,  don't  leave 
me  alone  with  him."  At  least,  I  can  see  now  that  that's 
what  they  were  saying.  And  even  at  the  time  I  saw  on 
her  dear  face  the  same  blessed  relief  (at  finding  me  there) 
that  I  had  seen  on  Reggie's. 

Neither  Reggie  nor  I,  mind  you,  had  seen  Jevons  yet 
(I  am  speaking  of  fractions  of  seconds  of  time)  ;  and  he 
wasn't  actually  in  the  room ;  but  Viola  and  I  were  aware 
of  him  outside.  If  he  had  not  paused  on  the  landing  to 
dispose  of  his  overcoat  and  his  hat  and  his  stick,  their 
entrance  would  have  been  simultaneous. 


MY  BOOK  41 

That  pause  saved  them. 

His  stick  slipped  and  tumbled  down  on  the  landing  with 
a  clatter.  We  heard  him  prop  it  up  again.  Our  eyes  met. 
I'm  afraid  mine  said :  "What  are  you  going  to  do  now  ?" 

Then  he  came  in  and  I  saw  the  gallant  Reggie  take  the 
shock  of  him.  I  don't  suppose  he  had  ever  before  met 
anything  like  Jevons — I  mean  really  met  him,  at  close 
quarters — in  his  life.  But  he  was  gallant,  and  he  had  his 
face  well  under  control.  Only  the  remotest,  vanishing 
quiver  and  twinkle  betrayed  the  extremity  of  his  astonish- 
ment. 

Viola,  with  an  admirable  air  of  detachment  from 
Jevons,  introduced  them.  I  don't  know  how  she  did  it. 
It  was  as  if,  without  any  actual  repudiation,  she  declined 
to  hold  herself  responsible  for  Jevons'  appearance;  for 
the  extraordinary  little  bow  he  made ;  for  his  jerky  aplomb 
and  for  his  "Glad  to  meet  you,  Captain."  And  for  the 
rest,  she  just  handed  him  over  to  her  brother  and  trusted 
Reggie  to  be  decent  to  him. 

I  had  wondered :  Are  they  going  to  let  on  that  they've 
been  out  together?  She  cannot — she  cannot  own  up  to 
that.  But  how  are  they  going  to  get  out  of  it,  and  will  he 
betray  her  ? 

I  saw  how  they  were  going  to  get  out  of  it.  If  they 
didn't  say  in  as  many  words  that  they'd  met  on  the  door- 
step they  implied  it  in  everything  they  said.  They  asked 
each  other  polite  questions,  all  to  the  tune  of:  "What 
have  you  been  doing  since  I  last  saw  you?" — to  convey 
the  impression  that  they  had  met  thus  casually  after  a 
long  interval.  Jevons  played  up  to  her  well,  almost  too 
well ;  so  well,  in  fact,  did  he  play,  that  not  long  afterwards 
I  was  to  ask  myself:  Was  this  perfection  the  result  of 
collusion  ?  Had  they  anticipated  just  such  a  sudden,  dis- 
concerting encounter?  Had  they  thought  it  all  out  and 


42  THE  BELFRY 

arranged  with  each  other  beforehand  how  they  should 
behave  ?    I  don't  know.    I  never  cared  to  ask  her. 

The  game  lasted  some  little  time.  I  didn't  like  to  see 
her  driven  to  these  shifts  (I  was  afraid,  in  fact,  they'd 
overdo  it),  and  I  came  to  her  help  by  telling  Jevons  that 
Captain  Thesiger  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  his  work ; 
and  Eeggie  burst  in  jubilantly — he  was  evidently  glad  to 
be  able  to  meet  Jevons  on  this  happy  ground — with :  "Are 
you  the  chap  who  wrote  those  things  I've  been  reading? 
I  say,  Vee-Vee,  you  might  have  told  me." 

He  fastened  upon  Jevons  then  and  there.  He  started 
him  off  on  the  boxing  match.  There  was  very  little  about 
boxing  that  Reggie  didn't  know,  but  he  appealed  to  Jevons 
with  a  charming  deference  as  to  an  expert.  The  dear  boy 
had  a  good  deal  of  his  sister's  innocent  veneration  for  the 
chaps  who  wrote  the  things  they'd  been  reading,  who  could, 
that  is  to  say,  do  something  they  couldn't  do. 

And  Jevons,  once  started  on  the  boxing  match,  fairly 
let  himself  go.  He  careered  over  the  field  of  sport,  inter- 
rupting his  own  serious  professional  elan  with  all  sorts  of 
childlike  and  spontaneous  gambols.  In  some  of  his  turns 
he  was  entirely  lovable.  It  was  clear  that  Reggie  loved 
him  as  you  love  a  strange  little  animal  at  play,  or  any 
vital  object  that  diverts  you.  From  his  manner  I  gathered 
that,  provided  he  were  not  committed  to  closer  acquain- 
tance with  Jevons,  he  was  willing  enough  to  snatch  the 
passing  joy  of  him. 

I  do  not  know  by  what  transitions  they  slid  together 
on  to  the  Boer  War.  The  Boer  War  happened  to  be  Reg- 
gie's own  ground.  He  had  served  in  it.  You  would  have 
said  that  Jevons  had  served  in  it  too,  to  hear  him.  He 
traced  the  course  of  the  entire  campaign  for  Reggie's  bene- 
fit. He  showed  him  by  what  error  each  regrettable  inci- 


MY  BOOK  43 

dent  (as  they  called  them  then)  had  occurred,  and  by 
what  strategy  it  might  have  been  prevented. 

And  Eeggie — who  had  been  there — listened  respectfully 
to  Jevons. 

Viola  had  lured  me  into  a  corner  where  only  scraps  of 
their  conversation  reached  us  from  time  to  time.  So  I 
do  not  know  whether  it  was  in  connection  with  the  Boer 
War  that  Jevons  began  telling  Reggie  that  journalism  was 
a  rotten  game ;  that  from  birth  he  had  been  baulked  of  his 
ambition.  He  had  wanted  to  be  tall  and  handsome.  He 
had  wanted  to  be  valorous  and  athletic.  And  here  he  was 
sent  into  the  world  undersized  and  not  even  passably  good- 
looking.  And  what — he  asked  Eeggie — could  he  do  with 
a  physique  like  his  ? 

I  remember  Reggie  telling  Jevons  his  physique  didn't 
matter  a  hang.  He  could  be  a  war  correspondent  in  the 
next  war.  I  remember  Jevons  saying  in  an  awful  voice: 
That  was  just  it.  He  couldn't  be  anything  in  the  next 
war — and,  by  God,  there  was  a  big  war  coming — he  gave 
it  eight  years — but  he  couldn't  be  in  it.  He  was  an  arrant 
coward. 

That,  he  said,  was  his  tragedy.  His  cowardice — his 
distaste  for  danger — his  certainty  that  if  any  danger  were 
ever  to  come  near  him  he  would  funk. 

And  I  remember  Reggie  saying,  "My  dear  fellow,  if 

you've  the  courage  to  say  so "  and  Jevons  beating  off 

this  consolation  with  a  funny  gesture  of  despair.  And 
then  his  silence. 

It  was  as  if  suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  his  gambolling, 
little  Jevons  had  fallen  into  an  abyss.  He  sat  there,  at 
the  bottom  of  the  pit,  staring  at  us  in  the  misery  of  the 
damned. 

I  looked  at  Viola.      Her  eyelids  drooped;  her  head 


44  THE  BELFRY 

drooped.  Her  whole  body  drooped  under  the  affliction  of 
his  stare,  and  she  would  not  look  at  me. 

Reggie  (he  really  was  decent)  tried  to  turn  it  off.  "I 
wouldn't  worry,  if  I  were  you,"  he  said.  "Wait  till  the 
war  comes." 

"Oh,  it's  coming  all  right,"  said  little  Jevons.  "No 
fear." 

And  as  if  he  could  no  longer  bear  to  contemplate  his 
cowardice,  he  said  good-bye  to  us  and  left.  Reggie's  eyes 
followed  his  dejected,  retreating  figure. 

"How  quaint !"  he  said.  "But  he's  a  smart  chap,  any- 
way. And,  mind  you,  he's  right  about  that  war." 

I  said  (Heaven  knows  why,  except  that  I  think  I  must 
have  wanted  Reggie's  opinion  of  Jevons)  :  "D'you  think 
he's  right  about  his  own  cowardice  ?" 

Reggie  said,  "Ask  me  another.  You  can't  tell.  I  only 
know  I've  seen  men  look  like  that  and  talk  like  that  before 
an  engagement." 

Viola  raised  her  head.  Her  voice  came  with  the  clear 
tremor  of  a  bell :  "And  did  they  funk  ?" 

"They  didn't  run  away,  if  that's  what  you  mean.  I 
daresay  they  felt  like  Jevons.  I've  felt  like  Jevons  my- 
self." 

Of  course,  knowing  Jevons  as  I  do  now,  I  have  some- 
times fancied  his  talk  about  cowardice  may  have  been  mere 
bravado,  the  risk  he  took  with  Reggie.  But  here  again  I 
am  not  quite  sure.  I  don't  really  know. 

I  am,  however,  entirely  enlightened  as  to  the  game  Viola 
played  with  me  that  night. 

Jevons  had  stayed  till  half-past  six.  He  had  talked  for 
two  hours  and  a  half.  When  I  got  up  to  go,  Reggie  sug- 
gested that  his  sister  should  come  and  dine  with  him  some- 
where in  town  and  do  a  play  afterwards. 


MY  BOOK  45 

She  said,  All  right.  She  was  on.  And  Furny  would 
come  too. 

He  said,  of  course  I  was  coming  too.  That  was  what 
he  had  meant  (it  wasn't). 

And  in  the  end  I  went.  I  say  in  the  end — for  of  course 
I  protested.  It  was  his  one  evening  with  his  sister.  But 
Viola's  poor  eyes  signalled  to  me  and  implored  me :  "Don't 
leave  me  alone  with  him,  whatever  you  do."  She  wanted 
to  put  off  the  dreadful  moment  that  must  come  when  he 
would  ask  her:  "Where  on  earth  did  you  pick  up  that 
shocking  little  bounder?" 

But  the  question  never  came.  To  begin  with,  Keggie 
was  so  enthralled  by  the  funny  play  we  went  to  that 
he  forgot  all  about  Jevons.  And  then  Viola's  game,  that 
started  in  the  restaurant  and  went  on  all  through  dinner, 
began  again  and  continued  in  the  taxi  after  the  play. 
And  though  Reggie  was  discretion  itself,  you  could  see 
that  he  had  taken  it  for  granted — and  no  wonder — that 
she  and  I  were,  well,  on  the  brink  of  an  engagement  if 
we  hadn't  fallen  in.  As  for  Jevons,  he  simply  couldn't 
have  conceived  him  in  that  connection.  To  Reggie  Jevons 
was  simply  an  amusing  little  scallywag  who  could  write. 
That  Viola  should  have  taken  Jevons  seriously  surpassed 
his  imagination  of  the  possible.  So  that  she  never  was  in 
any  danger  of  discovery,  and  there  was  no  need  for  her 
manoauvres.  He  couldn't  have  so  much  as  found  out  that 
she  had  gone  fqr  a  walk  with  Jevons,  because  it  wouldn't 
have  entered  his  head  that  you  could  go  for  a  walk  with 
him.  People  didn't  do  these  things. 

Besides,  he  never  was  alone  with  her  that  evening. 
She  took  good  care  of  that.  She  insisted  on  dropping  him 
at  his  hotel,  which  we  passed  on  our  way  northwards. 
She  actually  said  to  him,  "You  must  get  out  here. 
Furny'll  see  me  home.  I  want  to  talk  to  him." 


46  THE  BELFRY 

And  instead  of  talking  to  me,  she  sat  leaning  forward 
with  her  back  half  turned  to  me,  staring  through  the 
window  at  nothing  at  all. 

That  was  how  I  came  to  propose  to  Viola  in  the  taxi. 
I  had  been  afraid  to  do  it  before.  I  wasn't  going  to  do 
it  at  all  unless  I  was  sure  of  her.  But  it  seemed  to  me 
that  she  had  been  trying  all  afternoon  and  all  evening  to 
tell  me  that  I  might  be  sure. 

Well — she  wouldn't  have  me.  She  was  most  decided 
about  it.  I  had  no  hope  and  no  defence  and  no  appeal 
from  her  decision.  Unless  I  was  prepared  to  be  a  bounder 
— and  a  fatuous  bounder  at  that — I  couldn't  tell  her  that 
she  had  given  me  encouragement  that  almost  amounted  to 
invitation.  To  do  her  justice,  until  the  dreadful  moment 
in  the  taxi  she  hadn't  known  that  she  had  given  me  any- 
thing. She  confessed  that  she  had  been  trying  to  convey 
to  Reggie  the  impression  that  if  her  affections  were  en- 
gaged in  any  quarter  it  was  in  mine.  She  had  been  so 
absorbed  in  calculating  the  effect  on  Reggie  that  she  had 
never  considered  the  effect  on  me.  She  said  she  thought 
I  knew  what  she  was  up  to  and  that  I  was  simply  seeing 
her  through.  She  spoke  of  Jevons  as  if  he  was  a  joke — 
a  joke  that  might  be  disastrous  if  her  family  took  it 
seriously.  It  might  end  in  her  recall  from  town.  She 
intimated  that  there  were  limits  even  to  Reggie's  enjoy- 
ment of  the  absurd ;  she  owned  quite  frankly  that  she  was 
afraid  of  Reggie — afraid  of  what  he  might  think  of  her 
and  say  to  her ;  because,  she  said,  she  was  so  awfully  fond 
of  him.  As  for  me,  and  what  /  might  think,  it  was  open 
to  me  to  regard  her  solitary  stroll  with  Jevons  as  a  funny 
escapade. 

I  do  not  believe  the  poor  child  was  trying  to  throw  dust 
in  my  eyes.  It  was  her  own  eyes  she  was  throwing  dust 


MY  BOOK  47 

in.  She  didn't  want  to  think  of  herself  what  she  was 
afraid  of  Reggie  thinking. 

As  to  the  grounds  of  my  rejection  (I  was  determined  to 
know  them),  she  was  clear  enough  in  her  own  little  mind. 
She  liked  me ;  she  liked  me  immensely ;  she  liked  me  better 
than  anybody  in  the  world  but  Reggie.  She  admired 
me;  she  admired  everything  I  did;  she  thought  me  hand- 
some; I  was  the  nicest-looking  man  she  knew,  next  to 
Reggie.  But  she  didn't  love  me. 

"What's  more,  Furny,"  she  said,  "I  can't  think  why  I 
don't  love  you." 

I  couldn't  see  her  clearly  and  continuously  in  the  taxi. 
The  lamp-posts  we  passed  on  the  way  to  Hampstead  lit  her 
up  at  short,  regular  intervals,  and  at  short,  regular  inter- 
vals she  faded  and  was  withdrawn  from  me.  And  in  the 
same  intermittent  way,  her  soul,  as  she  was  trying  to  show 
it  to  me,  was  illuminated  and  withdrawn. 

"I  ought  to  love  you,"  she  went  on.  "I  know  I  ought. 
It  would  be  the  very  best  thing  I  could  do." 

The  folly  in  me  clutched  at  that  admission  and  gave 
tongue.  "If  that's  so,"  I  said,  "don't  you  think  you  could 
try  to  do  what  you  ought  ?" 

The  lamp-light  fell  on  her  then.  She  was  smiling  a 
little  sad,  wise  smile.  "No,"  she  said.  "No.  I  think 
that's  why  I  can't  love  you — because  I  ought." 

And  then  she  went  on  to  explain  that  what  she  had 
against  me  was  my  frightful  rectitude. 

"You're  too  nice  for  me,  Furny,  much  too  nice.  And 
ever  so  much  too  good.  I  simply  couldn't  live  with  integ- 
rity like  yours."  She  paused  and  then  turned  to  me  full 
as  we  passed  a  lamp-post. 

"I  suppose  you  know  my  people  would  like  me  to  marry 
you?" 


48  THE  BELFRY 

I  said  a  little  irritably  that  I  had  no  reason  to  suppose 
anything  of  the  sort. 

"They  would,"  she  said.  "Why,  bless  you,  that's  what 
they  asked  you  down  at  Whitsuntide  for!  I  don't  mean 
that  they  said  to  each  other:  Let's  ask  him  down  and 
then  he'll  marry  Viola.  They  wouldn't  even  think  it — 
they're  much  too  nice.  Poor  dears — they'd  be  horrified 
if  they  knew  I  knew  it!  But  it  was  underneath  their 
minds,  you  know,  pushing  them  on  all  the  time.  I  believe 
they  sent  Reggie  up  to  have  a  look  at  you,  though  they 
don't  know  that  either.  They  think  they  sent  him  to 
see  what  I  was  up  to.  You  see,  Furny  dear,  from  their 
point  of  view  you  are  so  eligible.  And  really,  do  you 
know,  I  think  that's  what's  dished  you — what's  dished  us 
both,  if  you  like  to  put  it  that  way.  I'm  sure  you  may." 

I  said  it  didn't  matter  much  what  dished  me  or  how 
I  put  it,  provided  I  was  dished.  But — was  I  ? 

Oh  yes!  She  left  me  in  no  doubt  that  I  was  dished. 
And  I  saw — I  still  see,  and  if  anything  more  clearly — why. 

I  was  everything  that  Canterbury  approved  of.  And 
Viola,  in  her  young  revolt,  was  up  against  everything  of 
which  Canterbury  approved.  Her  people  were  dear 
people;  they  were  charming  people,  well-bred  people; 
they  had  unbroken  traditions  of  beautiful  behaviour. 
And  they  had  tied  her  up  too  tight  in  their  traditions; 
that  was  all.  Viola  would  never  marry  anybody  on  whom 
Canterbury  had  set  its  seal. 

And  seeing  all  that,  I  saw  that  I  had  missed  her  by 
a  mere  accident.  It  was  my  friend  the  General  who  had 
dished  me  when  he  testified  to  my  entire  eligibility.  That's 
to  say,  it  was  my  own  fault.  If  I  had  let  well  alone ;  if  I 
hadn't  turned  the  General  on  to  them,  I  should  have  been 
in  the  highest  degree  ineligible ;  7  should  have  been  a  per- 
son of  whom  Canterbury  most  severely  disapproved ;  when 


MY  BOOK  49 

I've  no  doubt  that  Viola,  out  of  sheer  perversity,  would 
have  insisted  on  marrying  me. 

She  said  as  much.  So  far  she  saw  into  herself  and  no 
farther. 

The  Northern  Heights  were  favourable  to  this  inter- 
view, for  the  taxi  broke  down  in  an  attempt  to  scale  East 
Heath  Road,  so  that  we  walked  the  last  few  hundred  yards 
together  to  her  door. 

It  was  while  we  were  walking  that — stung  by  a  sudden 
fear,  a  reminiscence  of  the  afternoon — I  asked  her :  Was 
there  anybody  else  ? 

No,  she  said,  there  wasn't.  How  could  there  be? 
Hadn't  she  told  me  she  liked  me  better  than  anybody 
else,  next  to  Reggie  ? 

"Are  you  sure  2"  I  said.    "Are  you  quite  sure  ?" 

She  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the  road  and  looked  at 
me. 

"Of  course,"  she  said.  "There  isn't  anybody.  Except 
poor,  funny  little  Jevons.  And  you  couldn't  mean  him." 

That  was  as  near  as  we  got  to  him  then. 

But  a  week  later — the  week  before  Easter — he  came 
to  us  suddenly  in  my  rooms  where  Viola  was  correcting 
proofs  for  me. 

He  had  come  to  tell  us  of  his  good  luck.  His  novel  had 
been  accepted. 

I  was  glad,  of  course.  But  Viola  was  more  than  glad. 
She  was  excited,  agitated.  She  jumped  up  and  said :  "Oh, 
Jimmy!"  (She  called  him  Jimmy,  and  her  voice  told 
me  that  it  was  not  for  the  first  time.)  "Jimmy!  How 
simply  spiffing!" 

And  I  saw  him  look  at  her  with  a  grave  and  tender 
assurance,  as  a  man  looks  at  the  woman  he  loves  when 
he  knows  that  the  hour  of  his  triumph  is  her  hour. 


50  THE  BELFRY 

And  I  thought  even  then :  It's  nothing.  It's  only  that 
she's  glad  the  poor  chap  has  pulled  it  off. 

Then  she  said:  "Let's  all  go  and  dine  somewhere  to- 
gether. You  don't  mind,  Furny  dear,  do  you  ?  I'll  take 
it  home  and  sit  up  with  it." 

Oh,  I  didn't  mind.  We  all  went  somewhere  and  dined 
together.  We  went,  for  the  sheer  appropriateness  of  it, 
to  that  restaurant  in  Soho  where  I  had  dined  with  Jevons 
for  the  first  time.  That  was  how  it  happened — what  did 
happen,  I  mean,  afterwards,  in  my  rooms  where  Jevons 
had  left  us. 

We  had  gone  back  there  for  coffee  and  cigarettes.  (Can- 
terbury wouldn't  have  approved  of  this.) 

He  had  said  good  night  to  us  when  he  turned  on  the 
threshold  with  his  reminiscence.  The  restaurant  in  Soho 
had  aroused  it. 

"I  say,  Furnival,  do  you  remember  that  half-crown  you 
borrowed  from  me?" 

I  said  I  did.  And  that  to  remind  me  of  it  now  was  a 
joke  in  very  questionable  taste. 

He  said,  "You  never  really  knew  the  joke.  I  kept  it 
from  you  most  carefully.  That  little  orgy  of  ours  had 
just  about  cleared  me  out  and  the  half-crown  was  my  last 
half-crown.  I  had  to  go  without  any  dinner  for  three 
days." 

I  mumbled  something  about  his  not  meaning  it. 

He  said,  "Of  course  I  meant  it.  Why,  my  dear  chap, 
that's  the  joke !" 

He  stood  there  in  the  doorway,  rocking  with  laughter. 
Then  he  saw  our  faces. 

"I  say,  I  wouldn't  have  told  you  if  I'd  thought  it  would 
harrow  you  like  that.  Thought  you'd  think  it  funny.  It 
is  funny." 


MY  BOOK  51 

I  said,  "No,  my  dear  fellow,  it's  just  missed  being 
funny." 

I  put  my  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  pushed  him  from 
the  room.  (I  had  seen  Viola's  face  and  I  didn't  want  him 
to  see  it.)  I  led  him  gently  downstairs  with  a  hand  still 
on  his  shoulder.  He  was  a  little  grieved  at  giving  pain 
when  he  had  hoped  to  give  pleasure. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  stairs  he  turned  and  looked  at 
me  with  his  ungovernable  twinkle.  "It  was  funny,"  he 
said.  "But  it  wasn't  half  so  funny,  Furnival,  as  your 
face." 

I  found  Viola  sitting  at  my  writing-table,  with  her  arms 
flung  out  over  it  and  her  head  bowed  on  them.  And  she 
was  crying — crying  with  little  soft  sobs.  I've  said  that 
I  didn't  think  she  could  do  it.  And  I  didn't.  She  wasn't 
the  sort  that  cries.  I'm  convinced  she  hadn't  cried  like 
this  for  years,  perhaps  never  since  she  was  a  child. 

I  put  my  arms  round  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  child; 
I  held  her  soft,  warm,  quivering  body  close  to  mine;  I 
wiped  her  tears  away  with  her  pocket-handkerchief.  And 
like  a  child  she  abandoned  herself  to  my — to  my  rectitude. 
She  trusted  in  it  utterly.  I  might  have  been  her  brother 

Reggie. 

I  said :  "You  mustn't  mind.  He  was  only  rotting  us." 
And  she  said:  "He  wasn't.  It  was  true.  He  told  me 
that  six  months  ago  he  was  starving." 

I  said:  "Vee-Vee,  if  he  was,  you  mustn't  think  about 
him.  You  mustn't,  really." 

Then  she  drew  away  from  me  and  dried  her  eyes  her- 
self, carefully  and  efficiently,  and  said  in  a  calm  and 
measured  voice :  "I'm  not  thinking  about  him." 

I  went  on  as  if  I  hadn't  heard  her :  "You  mustn't  be 
sorry  for  him.  Jevons  is  quite  clever  enough  to  take  care 


52  THE  BELFRY 

of  himself.  He  isn't  a  bit  pathetic.  You  mustn't  let  him 
get  at  you  that  way." 

She  raised  her  head  with  her  old,  high  defiance.  "He 
isn't  trying  to  get  at  me.  I'm  not  sorry  for  him — any 
more  than  he's  sorry  for  himself." 

I  said,  "You  don't  know.  You're  just  a  dear  little 
ostrich  hiding  its  head  in  the  sand." 

"No,"  she  said.  "No.  I'm  not  a  fool,  Fumy.  Even 
an  ostrich  isn't  such  a  fool  as  it  looks.  It  doesn't  imagine 
for  a  moment  that  it  isn't  seen.  It  hides  its  head  because 
it  knows  it's  going  to  be  caught,  anyway,  and  it's  afraid 
of  seeing  what's  going  to  catch  it." 

I  asked  her  then,  Was  she  afraid  ? 

She  was  standing  beside  me  now,  leaning  back  against 
my  writing-table.  Her  two  hands  clutched  the  edge  of 
it.  Her  eyes  had  a  far-seeing,  candid  gaze. 

"I'm  not  afraid,"  she  said,  "of  anything  outside  me. 
Only  of  things  inside  me — sometimes." 

"What  sort  of  things?" 

She  smiled,  the  queerest  little,  far-off  smile. 

"Oh,  funny  things — things  you  wouldn't  understand, 
Fumy." 

To  that  I  said,  "I  wish  you'd  marry  me,  Viola." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  said,  so  did  she,  and 
it  was  much  worse  for  her  than  it  was  for  me.  And  then : 
"Do  you  know,  Reggie  liked  you  immensely.  He  told 
me  so." 

I  said  it  would  be  more  to  the  point  if  she  did.  But 
since  she  didn't,  since  she  couldn't  marry  me,  I  wished — 
"I  wish,"  I  said,  "you'd  go  back  to  Canterbury  and  marry 
some  nice  man  like  Reggie." 

"Can't  you  see,"  she  cried,  "that  I  shall  never  marry 
a  nice  man  like  Reggie  ?" 


m 

THE  next  thing  that  happened  was  that  she  went  off 
with  Jevons. 

At  least,  to  all  appearances  she  went  off  with  him. 
They  were  in  Belgium,  at  Bruges  and  Antwerp  and  Ghent 
and  Bruges  again  together.  I  found  them  at  Bruges  after 
having  tracked  them  through  all  the  other  places. 

It  was  Captain  Thesiger  who  started  me.  Reggie 
(whose  family  seemed  to  employ  him  chiefly  to  find  out 
what  Viola  was  up  to)  had  called  at  my  rooms  after 
Easter  to  ask  me  if  I  could  give  him  his  sister's  address. 
He  said  they  hadn't  got  it  at  Hampstead,  where  he  had 
been  to  see  her,  and  they  didn't  know  where  she  was  stay- 
ing. They  thought  it  was  in  the  country  somewhere,  and 
that  she  wouldn't  be  very  long  away,  as  she  told  them  not 
to  forward  any  letters.  He  thought  I  might  possibly  have 
her  address. 

I  told  him  that  I  hadn't,  and  that  I  didn't  know  how 
to  get  it,  either. 

He  said,  "It's  a  rotten  habit  she's  got  of  sloping  off 
like  this  without  telling  you."  It  wouldn't  matter,  only 
his  regiment  was  ordered  off  to  India.  He  was  sailing 
next  week.  She  was  to  have  come  down  to  Canterbury 
for  Easter  and  she  hadn't.  If  he  only  knew  the  people 
she  was  stopping  with — if  he'd  any  idea  of  the  town  or 
the  village  or  the  county,  he'd  try  and  find  her.  But  she 
might  be  in  the  Hebrides  for  all  he  knew. 

I  said  I  was  sorry  I  couldn't  help.  All  I  knew  was 

53 


54  THE  BELFRY 

she  had  gone  into  the  country  (I  didn't  know  it,  but  I  as- 
sumed the  knowledge  for  her  protection).  She  had  told 
me  she  might  be  going  (she  had),  and  I  didn't  think  she'd 
be  away  for  more  than  a  day  or  two.  I  was  pretty  sure 
she'd  be  back  before  he  sailed. 

I'd  no  reason,  you  see,  to  suppose  she  wouldn't  be. 
Anyhow,  I  satisfied  him. 

I  marvel  now  at  the  ease  with  which  I  did  it.  But  he 
was  used  to  Viola's  casual  behaviour;  and  the  monstrous 
improbability  of  the  thing  she  had  done  this  time  was  her 
cover.  Who  in  the  world  would  have  dreamed  that  she 
would  go  off  with  Jevons?  I  don't  really  know  that  I 
dreamed  it  myself  at  the  moment.  I  may  be  mixing  up 
with  my  first  vague  dread  the  certainty  that  came  later. 
But  sometimes  I  wonder  why  Reggie  didn't  suspect  me. 
I  suppose  my  rectitude  that  had  dished  me  with  Viola 
saved  me  with  her  brother. 

He  took  me  to  lunch  with  him  at  his  club,  and  went 
off  quite  happily  afterwards  to  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores 
to  see  about  his  kit. 

I  went  straight  to  Jevons's  rooms  in  Bernard  Street. 
Jevons  was  away.  Had  been  away  since  Easter.  His 
landlady  couldn't  give  me  his  address.  He  hadn't  told 
them  where  he  was  going  to,  and  they  rather  thought  he 
was  abroad.  His  letters  were  all  forwarded  to  his  publish- 
ers. They  might  give  me  his  address. 

I  went  to  his  publishers.  They  wouldn't  give  me  his 
address.  They  weren't  allowed  to  give  addresses,  but 
they  would  forward  any  letters  to  Mr.  Jevons.  I  said  I 
was  a  friend  of  Mr.  Jevons's.  Could  they  at  least  tell  me 
whether  he  was  or  was  not  in  England?  They  said  that 
when  they  had  last  heard  from  him  he  was  not. 

Then  I  went  down  to  Fleet  Street,  to  his  editor,  my 
editor.  He  couldn't  give  me  Jevons's  address  because  he 


MY  BOOK  55 

hadn't  got  it.  He  rang  up  the  office.  In  the  office  they 
rather  thought  Jevons  was  in  Belgium.  They'd  had  a 
manuscript  from  him  posted  at  Ostend.  They  looked  up 
the  date.  It  was  three  days  ago. 

I  sailed  that  night  for  Ostend. 

Of  course  I  had  no  business  to  follow  Jevons.  He  had 
a  perfect  right  to  travel — to  travel  anywhere  he  liked, 
without  interference  from  anybody.  And  in  fixing  on  a 
time  to  travel  in,  nothing  was  more  likely  than  with  his 
mania  upon  him  he  would  choose  a  time  that  had  become 
valueless  to  him — a  time  that  he  had  no  other  use  for,  the 
time  when  Viola  Thesiger  was  away.  The  poverty  of 
his  resources  was  such  that  he  couldn't  afford  to  waste  any 
opportunity  of  seeing  her.  So  that  I  really  could  not  have 
given  any  satisfactory  answer  if  I  had  been  asked  why  I 
had  jumped  to  the  preposterous  conclusion  that,  because 
they  were  away  at  the  same  time,  they  were  away  together. 
It  ought  to  have  been  as  inconceivable  to  me  as  it  was  to 
Reggie.  I  can  only  say  that  in  following  him  I  acted  on 
an  intimation  that  amounted  to  certainty,  founded  on  I 
know  not  what  underground  flashes  of  illumination  and 
secret  fear. 

I  must  have  trusted  to  more  flashes  in  pursing  his  trail. 
For  when  I  reached  Folkestone  there  wasn't  any  trail  at 
all.  My  only  clue  was  that  three  days  ago  Jevons  had 
posted  a  manuscript  at  Ostend.  He  might  not  be  in  Bel- 
gium at  all.  He  might  be  in  Holland  or  in  France  or 
Germany  by  this  time. 

When  we  got  to  Ostend  I  made  systematic-  inquiries  at 
the  Post  Office  and  at  all  probable  hotels.  At  the  eleventh 
hotel  (a  very  humble  one)  I  heard  that  a  "Mr.  Chevons" 
had  stayed  there  one  night,  three  nights  ago.  No,  he  had 
nobody  with  him.  He  had  left  no  address.  They  didn't 
know  where  he  was  going  on  to.  I  found  out  under  another 


56  THE  BELFRY 

rubric  that  Englishmen  never  came  to  this  hotel.  There 
was  no  point  in  making  a  separate  search  for  Viola ;  if  my 
intuition  held  good,  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  find  out  where 
Jevons  was. 

I  went  on  to  Bruges.  Why,  I  cannot  tell  you.  I  had 
never  heard  either  Viola  or  Jevons  say  they  would  like 
to  see  Bruges.  But  Bruges  was  the  sort  of  place  that 
people  did  like  to  see. 

No  trace  of  Jevons  or  of  Viola  in  Bruges. 

I  went  on  to  Antwerp  (it  was  another  of  the  likely 
places) ,  and  then,  in  sheer  desperation,  to  Ghent. 

And  in  Ghent,  in  a  certain  hotel  in  the  Place  d'Armes, 
I  ran  up  against  Burton  Withers,  the  man  who  used  to 
be  on  the  old  Dispatch,  and  the  very  last  person  I  could 
have  wished  to  see.  I  didn't  ask  him  if  he'd  seen  Jevons ; 
I  didn't  mention  Jevons;  but  before  we'd  parted  he  had 
told  me  that,  by  the  way,  he'd  come  across  Jevons  in 
Bruges.  He  was  going  about  with  my  typist,  Miss  Thesi- 
ger.  They  were  staying  in  the  same  hotel. 

I  tried  to  say  as  casually  as  I  could  that  Miss  Thesiger 
had  wired  to  me  that  she  was  staying  in  that  hotel  with 
her  people. 

The  little  bounder  then  intimated  that  when  he  saw 
Miss  Thesiger  her  people  were  less  conspicuous  than 
Jevons. 

I  replied  that  that  was  probably  the  reason  why  they'd 
asked  me  to  join  them  when  I'd  seen  Ghent. 

Withers  advised  me  to  go  on  seeing  Ghent  if  I  wanted 
to  be  popular.  They — Jevons  and  Miss  Thesiger — didn't 
look  at  all  as  if  they  wanted  to  be  seen,  much  less  joined. 

He  had  the  air  of  knowing  a  good  deal  more  than  he 
cared  to  tell  me;  but  then  he  always  had  that  air;  you 
may  say  he  lived  on  it. 

I  asked  him  presently  (in  a  suitable  context)  whether 


MY  BOOK  57 

he  was  going  back  soon;  and  to  my  relief  I  learned  that 
he  had  only  just  come  out — for  his  paper — and  was  going 
on  into  Germany  through  Brussels.  He  wouldn't  be  back 
in  England  for  another  three  weeks  or  more. 

He  wouldn't  be  back,  I  reflected,  to  tell  what  he  knew 
or  what  he  didn't  know,  till  Reggie  Thesiger  had  sailed. 

I  got  rid  of  the  little  beast  on  the  first  likely  pretext, 
having  dealt  with  him  so  urbanely  that  he  couldn't  possibly 
think  he  had  told  me  anything  I  saw  reason  to  believe 
and  therefore  to  resent. 

Then  I  went  back  to  Bruges. 

This  time  my  quest  was  fairly  easy.  I  didn't  know 
what  hotel  Jevons  was  staying  in ;  but  I  did  know  the  sort 
of  hotel  that  Withers  stayed  in  when  he  was  travelling 
for  his  paper.  My  errand  was  narrowed  down  to  three 
or  four  (good,  but  not  too  good),  and  the  first  I  struck  in 
the  Market-Place  was  Withers's  hotel.  It  was  one  of  those 
that  three  days  ago  had  known  nothing  of  Jevons. 

I  inquired  this  time  for  Withers  and  was  told  that  he 
had  left  that  morning.  I  engaged  a  room  and  strolled 
out  into  the  Market-Place.  I  visited  the  Cathedral,  the 
Belfry,  and  the  Beguinage,  in  the  hope  of  coming  suddenly 
across  Viola  and  Jevons. 

I  did  not  come  across  them  in  any  of  those  places ;  but 
I  was  not  very  earnest  about  the  search.  I  was  so  sure 
that  if  Withers  had  not  lied  to  me  they  would  presently 
come  across  me  at  their  hotel.  I  meant  that  it  should  be 
that  way,  if  possible :  that  they  should  come  across  me  in 
a  place  where  they  could  not  evade  me.  God  only  knows 
what  I  meant  to  say  to  them  when  they  had  found  me. 

As  I  entered  the  hotel  again  I  saw  the  proprietor's  wife 
make  a  sign  to  her  husband.  They  conferred  together,  and 
sent  the  concierge  upstairs  after  me.  He  wanted  to  know 
if  I  was  the  gentleman  who  had  inquired  the  other  day 


58  THE  BELFRY 

for  Mr.  Chevons,  because,  if  I  was,  Mr.  Chevons  had 
arrived  the  day  before  yesterday  and  was  staying  in  the 
hotel. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  it;  his  name,  James  Tasker 
Jevons,  was  in  the  visitors'  list. 

Viola's  was  not. 

From  the  enthusiasm  of  the  fat  proprietor  and  his  wife 
you  would  have  supposed  that  Jevons  and  I  had  roamed 
the  habitable  globe  for  months  in  search  of  one  another; 
and  that  Jevons,  at  any  rate,  would  be  overpowered  with 
joy  when  he  found  that  I  was  here.  They  said  nothing 
about  Viola. 

And  before  I  could  ask  myself  what  earthly  motive 
Withers  could  have  had  for  lying  to  me,  I  concluded  that 
he  had  lied. 

Or  perhaps — it  was  more  than  likely — he  had  been  mis- 
taken. 

Jevons,  I  said  to  myself,  was  bound  to  turn  up  at  dinner. 
If  Viola  was  in  Bruges,  Viola  would  probably  be  with 
him.  I  chose  a  table  by  the  door  behind  a  screen,  where 
I  could  see  everybody  as  they  came  in  without  being  seen 
first  of  all  by  anybody. 

Jevons  didn't  turn  up  for  dinner. 

I  found  him  later  on  in  the  evening,  on  the  bridge  out- 
side the  eastern  gate  of  the  city.  He  stood  motionless  and 
alone,  leaning  over  the  parapet  and  looking  into  the  water. 
Away  beyond  the  Canal  a  long  dyke  of  mist  dammed  back 
the  flooding  moonlight,  and  the  things  around  Jevons — 
the  trees,  the  water,  the  bridge,  the  gate  and  its  twin  tur- 
rets— were  indistinct.  But  the  man  was  so  poured  out  and 
emptied  into  his  posture  that  I  could  see  his  dejection,  his 
despair.  The  posture  ought  to  have  disarmed  me,  but  it 
didn't. 

He  moved  away  as  he  saw  me  coming,  then,  recognizing 


MY  BOOK  59 

me,  he  stood  his  ground.  It  was  as  if  almost  he  were 
relieved  to  see  me. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?"  he  said. 

I  asked  him  who  he  thought  it  was,  and  he  said  he 
thought  it  was  that  little  beast  Withers. 

I  said,  "I  daresay  you  did.  I  saw  Withers  this  morn- 
ing." 

He  said  quite  calmly  he  supposed  that  was  why  I  was 
here. 

I  said  I  had  been  here  before  I  had  seen  Withers. 

"I  see,"  he  said.    "He's  told  you." 

I  said  Withers  had  told  me  nothing  I  didn't  know. 

"You  didn't  know  anything,"  he  said.  "You  simply 
came  here  to  find  out." 

I  said:    Yes,  that  was  what  I  had  come  for. 

"Well,"  he  went  on ;  "there  isn't  much  to  find  out.  She's 
here.  And  I'm  here.  And  Withers  saw  us  yesterday. 
As  he  told  you." 

He  spoke  in  the  tired,  toneless  voice  of  a  man  stating 
for  the  thirty-first  time  an  obvious  and  uninteresting  fact. 
He  knew  that  I  had  tracked  him  down,  but  he  didn't 
resent  it.  I  felt  more  than  ever  that  this  encounter  was 
in  some  way  a  relief  to  him ;  things,  he  almost  intimated, 
might  have  been  so  much  worse.  I  didn't  know  then  that 
his  calmness  was  the  measure  of  his  trust  in  me. 

"The  really  beastly  thing,"  he  said,  "was  Withers  see- 
ing us." 

I  answered  that  the  really  beastly  thing  was  his  being 
there;  his  having  brought  her  there;  and  that  it  would 
give  me  pleasure  to  pitch  him  over  the  canal  bridge,  only 
that  the  canal  water  was  too  clean  for  him. 

He  said,  "The  canal  water  is  filthy.  But  it  isn't  filthier 
than — it  isn't  half  so  filthy  as  your  imagination.  Your 
imagination,  Furnival,  is  like  the  main  sewer  of  this  city." 


60  THE  BELFRY 

He  said  it  without  any  sort  of  passion,  in  his  voice  of 
utter  weariness,  as  if  he  was  worn-out  with  struggling 
against  imaginations  such  as  mine. 

"But,"  he  went  on,  "even  your  imagination  isn't  as 
obscene  as  Withers's.  You  may  as  well  tell  me  what  he 
said  to  you  about  Miss  Thesiger." 

"He  said  that  she — that  you  were  staying  together  in 
the  same  hotel." 

"Why  shouldn't  we  ?  It's  a  pretty  big  hotel.  Do  you 
mind  my  going  back  to  it  ?" 

I  said  grimly  that  I  was  going  back  to  it  myself.  I 
wasn't  going  to  let  Jevons  out  of  my  sight.  I  felt  as  if  I 
had  taken  him  into  custody. 

We  went  back. 

We  didn't  speak  till  we  came  into  the  Market-Place. 
Then  Jevons  said  quietly: 

"As  it  happens,  we  aren't  staying  together  in  that 
damned  hotel.  I'm  staying  in  it  by  myself.  We  were 
dining  there  and  having  breakfast  when  Withers  spotted 
us.  You  don't  suppose  she'd  let  me  take  her  to  the  same 
hotel,  do  you  ?  I  got  a  room  for  her  in  a  boarding-house. 
Kept  by  some  ladies." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  bringing  her  here  at  all  ?  If," 
I  said,  "you  did  bring  her." 

He  meditated  as  if  he  too  wondered  what  he  had  meant 
by  it. 

"I  brought  her  all  right.  That's  to  say,  I  made  her 
come." 

"You  mean  you  didn't  bring  her  ?    She  followed  you  ?" 

(I  had  to  know  what  they  had  done,  how  they  had 
arranged  it.) 

We  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  middle  of  the  vast  foreign. 
Market-Place,  talking  in  voices  whose  softness  veiled  our 
hostility. 


MY  BOOK  61 

He  answered  with  a  little  spurt  of  anger.  "You  can't 
call  it  following.  She  came." 

"Don't  prevaricate,"  I  said.  "She  came  because  you 
made  her  come.  I'm  not  going  to  ask  you  why  you  made 
her.  It's  obvious." 

"Is  it?"  he  said.  "I  wish  I  knew  why.  I  wish  to 
God  I  knew." 

"Don't  talk  rot,"  I  said.  "You  knew  all  right.  And 
she  didn't." 

He  looked  at  me.  Standing  there  in  the  lighted  Market- 
place, under  the  shadow  of  the  monument,  he  looked  at  me 
with  shining,  tragic  eyes. 

"ISTo,  Furnival,"  he  said.  "Before  God  I  didn't  know. 
Neither  of  us  knew.  But  I  know  now.  And  I'm  going 
to-morrow." 

He  stuck  to  it  that  he  was  going.  He  seemed  to  think 
that  his  going  would  make  it  all  right.  He  had  just 
realized — he  had  only  just,  after  six  days  of  it,  mind  you, 
realized — that  he  had  compromised  her.  I  said  I  supposed 
he  realized  it  after  Withers  had  seen  them  ? 

He  said,  No,  it  had  come  over  him  before  that.  Neither 
of  them  really  cared  a  damn  about  Withers.  Who  was 
going  to  care  what  a  beast  like  Withers  thought  or  said  ? 
It  had  come  over  him  that  he  oughtn't  to  have  brought  her 
here.  He  wished  he'd  hung  himself  before  he'd  thought 
of  it,  but  the  fact  was  that  he  didn't  think.  He  just  felt 
when  he  got  out  here  himself  that  it  would  be  a  jolly 
thing  for  her  to  come  too;  it  would  do  her  good  to  cut 
everything — all  the  mimsy  tosh  she'd  been  brought  up  in 
and  hated — to  get  out  of  it  all — just  to  do  one  splendid 
bunk.  That,  he  said,  was  all  it  amounted  to. 

We  talked  it  over,  sitting  up  in  his  little  bedroom  under 
the  roof,  the  cheapest  room  in  the  hotel.  You  may  wonder 


62  THE  BELFRY 

how  I  could  have  endured  to  talk  to  him  instead  of  wring- 
ing his  horrid  little  neck  for  him;  but  there  wasn't  any- 
thing else  to  be  done.  After  all,  it  wouldn't  have  done 
Viola  or  me  any  good  if  I  had  wrung  his  neck.  It  was,  in 
fact,  to  save  precisely  that  sort  of  violent  scandal  that  I 
had  come  out  here.  I  had  realized  so  well  what  wringing 
Jevons's  neck  would  mean  to  Viola  that  I  was  determined 
to  get  at  him  before  Reggie  Thesiger  could. 

Besides  I  doubt  very  much  if  you  could  have  wrung 
the  neck  of  anybody  so  abjectly  penitent  as  Jevons  was 
that  evening.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  shut  up  with  a  criminal 
in  the  condemned  cell,  and  Jevons  no  doubt  felt  as  if 
he  had  murdered  Viola. 

And  yet,  sitting  there  on  his  bed,  leaning  forward  with 
his  head  in  his  hands  and  his  eyes  staring,  staring  at  the 
horror  he  had  raised  round  her,  he  asserted  persistently 
his  innocence. 

"Practically,"  he  said,  "I  brought  her  out  to  look  at 
Bruges — the  Belfry." 

I  said :  "Good  God !  Couldn't  she  look  at  the  Belfry 
without  you?" 

He  shook  his  head  and  replied  very  gravely :  "Not  in 
the  same  way,  Furnival.  Not  in  the  same  way.  It 
wouldn't  have  been  the  same  thing  at  all." 

"You  mean  it  wouldn't  have  been  the  same  for  you, 
you  little  bounder." 

"It  wouldn't  have  been  the  same  thing  for  her.  I  wasn't 
thinking  only  of  myself.  Who  does?" 

It  was  as  if  he  had  said:  "Who  that  loves  as  I  love 
thinks  only  of  himself?"  But  I  missed  that.  I  was  too 
angry. 

At  least  I  suppose  I  was  too  angry.  I  must  have  been. 
Jevons's  offence  was  unspeakable,  or  seemed  so.  He  had 
outraged  all  decencies.  He  had  done  me  about  the  worst 


MY  BOOK  63 

injury  that  one  man  can  do  to  another — at  any  rate,  I 
wasn't  sure  that  he  hadn't.  How  could  I  have  been  sure  ? 
Every  appearance  was  against  him.  Even  his  funny  can- 
dour left  me  with  a  ghastly  doubt.  It  was  preposterous, 
his  candour.  His  innocence  was  preposterous.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  write  about  this  singular  adventure  as  it 
must  have  appeared  to  me  at  the  time.  I  am  saturated 
with  Jevons's  point  of  view.  I  have  had  to  live  so  long 
with  his  innocence  and  I  have  forgiven  him  so  thoroughly 
any  wrong  he  ever  did  to  me.  All  this  is  bound  to  colour 
my  record  and  confuse  me.  I  have  impression  upon  im- 
pression of  Jevons  piled  in  my  memory ;  I  cannot  dig  down 
deep  enough  to  recover  the  original ;  I  cannot  get  back  to 
that  anger  of  mine,  that  passion  of  violent  integrity,  that 
simple  abhorrence  of  Jevons  that  I  must  have  felt. 

He  didn't  care  a  rap  about  me  and  my  abhorrence.  He 
asked  me  what  I  thought  I  was  doing  when  I  came  out 
here  ?  He  simply  smiled  when  I  told  him  I'd  come  out  to 
send  Viola  back  to  her  people  before  Reggie  Thesiger  got 
hold  of  him  and  thrashed  him  within  an  inch  of  his  life, 
not  because  I  in  the  least  objected  to  his  being  thrashed 
within  an  inch  of  his  life — far  from  it — but  because  ad- 
vertisement in  these  affairs  was  undesirable.  I  didn't 
want  Viola's  family  or  anybody  else  to  know  about  this 
instance.  It  was  to  be  hushed  up  on  her  account  and 
on  their  account  alone. 

He  replied  pensively  (almost  too  pensively)  that  he 
had  supposed  that  was  the  line  I  would  take.  It  was  his 
little  meditative  pose  that  made  me  call  him  a  thundering 
scallywag  and  accuse  him  of  having  calculated  on  the  line 
that  would  be  taken. 

He  said  quietly,  "The  word  thundering  is  singularly 
inappropriate.  There's  nothing  thundering  about  me.  I 
haven't  calculated  anything.  As  for  hushing  it  up,  I'm 


64  THE  BELFRY 

hushing  it  up  myself,  thank  you.  Haven't  I  told  you 
I'm  going  to-morrow  ?  Can't  you  see  that  I'm  packing  ?" 

He  had  evidently  been  trying  to  pack. 

"And  what,"  I  asked,  "is  Miss  Thesiger  doing?" 

"She's  staying  on  here  by  herself  a  bit.  In  the  pension. 
As  if  she'd  come  by  herself." 

He  seemed  entirely  satisfied  with  his  plan. 

I  said,  "Look  here,  Jevons,  that  won't  do.  It's  no  good 
your  going.  You've  been  seen  here.  You're  supposed 
to  be  staying  in  this  hotel  together.  If  you  go  and  she 
stays — in  that  pension — you've  deserted  her.  You've  se- 
duced her.  You're  tired  of  her — in  five  days — and  you've 
left  her." 

"You  don't  suppose  I  have  really  ?"  said  Jevons. 

"I  don't  suppose  anything.  I  don't  know  what  you've 
done.  I  don't  think  I  want  to  know.  That's  what  it'll 
look  like.  Do,  for  God's  sake,  remember  you've  been 
seen." 

He  gathered  a  portion  of  his  cheek  into  his  mouth  and 
sucked  it. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "it  would  look  like  that." 

I  said  of  course  it  would.  And  he  asked  me  then,  quite 
humbly,  what  I  thought  he'd  better  do. 

I  said  I  thought  he'd  better  do  exactly  what  I  told  him. 
He  was  to  stay  here  till  Captain  Thesiger  had  sailed  for 
India  (I  wasn't  going  to  let  him  get  back  to  England  till 
Reggie  was  out  of  it).  Miss  Thesiger  was  to  go  back  to 
her  people  to-morrow,  and  he  was  not  to  see  her  or  write 
to  her  before  she  went. 

He  asked  me  was  I  thinking  of  taking  her  back  myself  ? 

I  said  I  wasn't.  Miss  Thesiger  had  behaved  as  if  she 
had  disappeared.  There  was  no  good  in  my  behaving  as 
if  she  had  disappeared  with  me. 

That  seemed  to  pacify  him. 


MY  BOOK  65 

I  said  I  should  take  her  to  Ostend  to-morrow  and  put 
her  on  board  the  boat.  I  could  see  that  he  didn't  at  all 
care  about  this  part  of  the  programme,  but  his  intelligence 
accepted  the  whole  as  the  best  thing  that  could  be  done 
in  the  circumstances. 

Then  I  left  him  to  his  misery  and  went  round  to  the 
pension  to  see  Viola. 

All  my  instincts  revolted  against  what  I  had  to  do. 

She  has  since  told  me  that  I  did  it  beautifully.  I  don't, 
of  course,  believe  her,  and  it  doesn't  matter.  The  wonder 
is  how  I  did  it  at  all. 

To  begin  with  I  was  afraid  of  seeing  her,  because  I 
conceived  that  she  would  be  afraid  of  seeing  me.  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  hunted  her  down  and  caught  her  in  a  trap.  I 
didn't  want  the  bright,  defiant  creature  to  crouch  and 
flinch  before  me  in  her  corner.  And,  as  I  tried  to  realize 
our  encounter,  that  was  how  I  saw  her — crouching  and 
flinching  in  a  corner.  It  wouldn't  have  been  quite  so 
awful  if  the  man  had  been  any  other  man  but  Jevons. 
I  could  not  imagine  a  worse  position  for  a  girl  like  Viola 
Thesiger  than  to  be  caught  running  off  to  Belgium,  or 
anywhere,  with  Jevons,  and  told  to  leave  him  and  go 
home.  Put  brutally,  that  was  what  I  had  to  tell  her. 

The  only  way  to  do  it  was  to  ignore  the  unspeakable 
element  in  the  affair — to  ignore  Jevons.  To  behave  as  if 
I'd  never  heard  of  him;  as  if  she  were  just  travelling 
in  Belgium  on  her  own  account  and  staying  in  Bruges 
alone. 

And  that — if  she  had  only  let  me — was  what  I  tried 
to  do. 

I  remember  vividly  everything  that  passed  in  that  inter- 
view, but  I  do  not  know  how  to  reproduce  it,  how  to  give 
anything  like  an  impression  of  the  marvellous  thing  it  was, 


66  THE  BELFRY 

or  that  it  turned  into  under  her  hands.  It  ought,  you  see, 
to  have  been  so  ugly,  so  humiliating,  so  absolutely  intoler- 
able for  both  of  us.  And  it  wasn't.  She  took  it  from  me, 
at  the  end,  and  held  it  up,  as  it  were  a  little  way  out  of 
my  grasp;  and  before  I  knew  where  I  was,  with  some 
sudden  twist  or  turn  she  had  brought  beauty  out  of  it. 
Clear  and  exquisite  beauty. 

I  found  her  in  her  room  at  the  pension.  It  was  at  the 
back,  on  the  ground  floor ;  and  had  long  windows  opening 
into  a  little  high-walled  garden.  The  room,  I  remember, 
was  rather  dingy  and  stuffed  up  with  furniture.  Large 
Flemish  pieces,  bureaus,  chests  and  cabinets  stood  against 
the  walls.  There  was  a  bed  behind  the  door ;  she  had  put 
her  travelling-rug  over  it.  And  there  was  a  washstand 
in  an  alcove  with  a  curtain  hung  across  it;  and  some  of 
her  coats  and  gowns  hung  behind  another  curtain  in  a 
corner,  and  some  were  on  hooks  on  the  door.  And  her 
little  trunk  was  on  the  floor  by  the  foot  of  the  bed.  And 
her  shoes  stood  by  the  stove. 

Somehow,  when  I  saw  these  things — especially  the 
shoes — my  heart  melted  inside  me  with  a  tenderness  that 
was  infinitely  more  painful  than  the  rather  austere  dis- 
approval of  her  which  I  had  relied  on  for  support. 

I  was  prepared,  as  I  said,  for  a  cowed  and  frightened 
Viola,  or  for  Viola  in  a  mood  at  least  in  keeping  with  the 
poignant  and  somewhat  humbling  pathos  of  her  surround- 
ings ;  but  not  for  the  Viola  I  found. 

The  gargon  of  the  pension  closed  the  door  of  this  room 
in  my  face  as  he  went  in  with  my  card  to  inquire  whether 
she  would  receive  me.  I  thought,  "If  she  refuses  I  shall 
have  to  insist ;  and  that  will  be  unpleasant." 

But  she  didn't  refuse.  On  the  other  side  of  the  door 
I  heard  a  subdued,  but  curiously  reassuring  cry. 

She  had  been  sitting  outside  the  open  window.     Her 


MY  BOOK  67 

chair  was  on  the  flagged  path  of  the  garden.  As  I  came 
in  she  had  risen  and  was  standing  in  the  window,  with 
the  intense  blue  darkness  of  the  garden  behind  her  and 
the  light  of  the  room  on  her  face.  She  was  smiling  in  a 
serene  and  candid  joy.  For  one  second  I  imagined  that 
she  had  not  read  the  name  on  the  card  and  that  she  thought 
I  was  Jevons.  And  then  I  must  have  looked  away  quite 
steadily  so  as  not  to  see  her  shock  of  recognition ;  for  her 
voice  recalled  me. 

"Wally — how  ripping !    However  did  you  get  here  ?" 

I  don't  know  what  I  said.  I  probably  didn't  say  any- 
thing. The  sheer  surprise  of  it  so  staggered  me  that  I 
must  have  muttered  or  grunted  or  choked  instead.  But  I 
know  I  took  her  hand  and  did  my  best  to  smile  back  at 
her  with  the  stiff  mouth  she  noticed  later. 

She  went  on:  "I  am  glad  to  see  you.  Have  you  had 
any  dinner  ?" 

I  said  I  had. 

"Then,"  she  said,  "let's  sit  in  the  garden." 

I  took  her  hat  off  a  chair  and  stuck  it  on  a  bust  on  the 
bureau  (Viola  laughed).  I  set  the  chair  on  the  flagged 
path  of  the  garden. 

"Have  you  had  coffee  ?"  she  said  then. 

I  had. 

"So  have  I.  But  I  haven't  had  it  in  the  garden.  We'll 
have  some  more." 

I  rang  for  coffee. 

We  sat  down  and  faced  each  other.  She  was  smiling 
again  as  if  the  delight  of  seeing  me  fairly  bubbled  out 
of  her.  One  thing  struck  me  then,  that  at  this  rate  it 
would  be  easy  enough  to  ignore  Jevons.  In  fact,  if  Jevons 
hadn't  given  Viola  away  just  now  I  should  have  thought 
that  she  was  travelling  in  Belgium  on  her  own  account 
and  that  his  being  here  in  the  same  town  with  her  was 


68  THE  BELFRY 

a  coincidence,  an  accident.  I  could  have  got  over  Withers 
and  his  story. 

Then  she  said,  "Have  you  come  across  Mr.  Jevons  yet  ? 
He's  here." 

I  answered,  with  what  I  knew  to  be  a  very  stiff  mouth, 
"We're  staying  in  the  same  hotel." 

"You  might  have  brought  him  along  with  you,"  she  said. 

I  said  I  didn't  want  to  bring  him  along  with  me. 

She  raised  her  eyebrows  in  delicate  reproof  of  my  rude- 
ness and  said,  "Why  not  ?" 

"Because,"  I  said,  "I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

"Oh — "  I  don't  think  I  imagined  the  faint  embarrass- 
ment in  her  tone.  But  it  was  very  faint. 

"And"  I  went  on,  "I  don't  want  to  talk  about  Jevons." 

She  looked  at  me  then  steadily.  The  look  held  me,  then 
defied  me  to  pass  beyond  a  certain  limit.  I  understood 
now  the  terms  of  our  encounter.  As  long  as  I  met  her 
on  the  ground  of  a  friendship  that  recognized  and  included 
Jevons  she  was  glad  to  treat  with  me;  but  any  attitude 
that  repudiated  Jevons,  or  merely  ignored  him,  was  a  hos- 
tile attitude  that  she  was  prepared  to  resent. 

"What  has  he  done  ?"  she  said. 

"I  don't  know  what  he's  done."  I  paused.  "Why  drag 
in  Jevons?" 

"Because,"  she  said,  "it's  his  last  night.  He's  going 
to-morrow." 

I  said,  "And  it's  my  first  night.  And  as  it  happens 
he  isn't  going  to-morrow.  He's  arranged  to  stay  here 
another  fortnight." 

Her  face  softened.    "Then  it's  all  right,"  she  said. 

I  had  to  dash  her  down  from  that  ground  and  I  did  it 
at  once. 

I  said,  "I  saw  your  brother  the  other  day." 

I  could  see  her  face  darken  then  with  a  flush  of  pain. 


MY  BOOK  69 

We  were  sitting  close  to  the  window,  and  the  light  from 
the  room  inside  showed  me  all  the  changes  of  her  face. 

She  asked,  "What  day?" 

"Let  me  see.  This  is  Friday.  It  must  have  been 
Monday.  I  came  over  that  night,  as  soon  as  I'd  seen 
him." 

"What  did  you  go  and  see  him  for  ?" 

"I  didn't  go.    He  came  to  see  me." 

She  looked  at  me  again,  if  possible,  more  steadily  than 
before,  but  without  defiance.  It  was  as  if  she  were  measur- 
ing the  extent  of  my  loyalty  before  she  committed  herself 
again  to  speech. 

"Why  did  he  come?"  she  asked  presently. 

"He  wanted  to  know  if  I  knew  where  you  were." 

"You  didn't  know,"  she  said. 

"I  didn't  or  I  wouldn't  have  lost  three  days  in  looking 
for  you.  But  I  made  a  good  shot,  anyhow,  when  I  came 
to  Bruges." 

Even  in  her  anguish — for  she  was  in  anguish — she 
smiled  at  the  wonder  of  my  shot. 

"What  made  you  think  of  Bruges  ?" 

"I  don't  know." 

I  couldn't  tell  her  what  had  made  me  think  of  it.  I 
couldn't  tell  her  that  I  had  tracked  her  down  through 
Jevons.  I  was  going  to  keep  him  out  of  it,  if  she  would 
only  let  me.  But  she  wouldn't. 

"I  suppose,"  she  meditated  gently,  "he  must  have  told 

you." 

I  answered  quite  sternly  this  time,  to  impress  on  her 
the  propriety  of  keeping  Jevons  out  of  it : 

"He  didn't  tell  me  anything." 

"Then" — she  was  still  puzzled — "what  made  you 
come  ?" 

"You." 


70  THE  BELFRY 

"Me?" 

"Your  brother,  if  you  like." 

"He  should  have  come  himself." 

"That,"  I  said,  "is  what  I'm  trying  to  prevent.  He 
doesn't  know  you're  here.  I  want  to  get  you  back  to 
England  before  he  does  know.  Besides — he's  sailing  for 
India  next  week." 

Then  she  broke  down;  that's  to  say,  she  lowered  her 
flags.  Her  head  sank  to  her  breast ;  her  eyes  stared  at  the 
stone  path;  their  lids  reddened  and  swelled  with  the 
springing  of  tears  that  would  not  fall. 

"Didn't  you  know?"  I  said. 

"I  suppose  I  must  have  known — once." 

Up  till  this  moment  she  had  not  said  one  word,  she  had 
not  made  one  sign,  that  had  really  given  her  away.  And 
nothing  could  have  given  her  away  more  completely  than 
the  thing  she  had  said  now.  She  had  confessed  to  a  passion 
so  dominating  and  so  blind  as  to  be  unaware  of  anything 
but  itself.  It  was  not  so  much  that  it  had  swept  before 
it  all  the  codes  and  traditions  she  had  been  brought  up 
in — codes  and  traditions  might  well  have  been  nothing  to 
Viola — it  had  struck  at  her  strongest  affection  and  her 
memory.  She  adored  her  brother.  He  was  sailing  for 
India  next  week;  she  must  have  known  it;  and  she  had 
forgotten  it. 

Her  confession  was  not  made  to  me  (she  had  forgotten 
my  existence  utterly)  ;  it  was  made  to  herself — the  old 
self  that  had  adored  Reggie ;  that  at  this  evocation  of  him 
arose  and  sat  in  judgment  on  the  strange,  perverted,  mon- 
strous self  that  could  forget  him.  I've  called  it  a  confes- 
sion ;  but  it  wasn't  a  confession.  It  was  a  cry,  a  muttering, 
rather,  of  secret,  agonized  discovery. 

"He  wants  to  see  you  before  he  goes,"  I  said. 

Her  eyelids  spilled  their  tears  at  that;  but  only  those 


MY  BOOK  71 

they  had  gathered;  no  more  came.  Her  self-control  was 
admirable. 

"It's  all  right,"  I  said.  "You've  heaps  of  time.  I'm 
going  to  take  you  to  Ostend  in  the  morning.  You'll  be 
in  Canterbury  to-morrow  night." 

"Is  that  what  you  came  for  ?" 

"Yes." 

"It  was  awfully  nice  of  you." 

"There  was  nothing  else,"  I  said,  "to  do." 

"You're  coming  with  me  to  Canterbury."    She  stated  it. 

"No,  my  dear  child,"  I  said,  "1  am  not.  You  don't 
want  them  to  think  you  went  to  Bruges  with  me." 

This  was  by  implication  a  reference  to  Jevons.  It  was 
as  near  as  I  had  let  myself  get  to  him. 

She  said,  "What  are  you  going  to  do,  then  ?" 

"I'm  going  to  put  you  on  the  boat  at  Ostend,  and  then 
I'm  coming  back  here." 

It  must  have  been  at  this  point  that  the  gargon  brought 
the  coffee.  For  I  remember  our  •  sitting  out  there  and 
drinking  it  amicably  until  the  aroma  of  it  gave  Viola  an 
idea. 

"What  time  shall  we  have  to  start  to-morrow  ?" 

I  said,  "First  thing  in  the  morning." 

"Then,"  she  said,  "it  does  seem  a  pity  not  to  send  for 
Jimmy." 

I  could  see  now  that  there  was  some  deadly  purpose  in 
her  persistence.  But  this  time  I  couldn't  bear  it,  and  I 
lost  my  temper. 

I  said,  "Send  for  him.  Send  for  him,  if  you  can't  live 
ten  minutes  without  him." 

I  was  sorry  even  at  the  time;  I  have  been  ashamed 
since.  For,  so  far  from  resenting  my  abominable  rude- 
ness— as,  under  any  conclusion,  she  had  a  perfect  right  to 
— she  merely  said,  "I'm  only  thinking  that  if  I've  got  to 


72  THE  BELFRY 

go  so  soon  to-morrow  it'll  be  horribly  lonely  for  him  over 
there.7' 

"He  doesn't  expect  to  see  you.    We  arranged  all  that." 

She  pondered  it,  still  with  that  curious  absence  of  re- 
sentment. It  was  as  if,  recognizing  the  danger  of  the 
situation,  she  submitted  to  any  steps,  however  disagree- 
able, that  were  necessary  for  her  safety.  It  was  clear  that 
she  trusted  me ;  less  clear  that  she  trusted  Jevons. 

One  thing  remained  mysterious  to  her. 

"What  are  you  coming  back  here  for  ?"  she  asked. 

I  let  her  have  it  straight :    "To  look  after  Jevons." 

"What  do  you  suppose  he'd  do  ?" 

"He  might  get  into  England  before  your  brother  got 
out  of  it." 

She  smiled.  "What  do  you  suppose,  then,  Eeggie'd 
do?" 

I  said  I  knew  what  I'd  do  if  I  were  Reggie. 

She  smiled  again.  "I  see.  You're  saving  him  from 
Reggie." 

"I'm  not  thinking  of  him,  I  can  assure  you." 

At  that  she  said,  "Dear  Wally,  so  you  think  you're  sav- 
ing me." 

"I'm  trying  to,"  I  said.  "As  far  as  your  people  are 
concerned.  You  don't  want  them  to  know  you've  been 
here.  If  you'll  only  leave  it  to  me,  they  won't  know." 

"I'm  not  going  to  lie  about  it.  I  shall  tell  them  if  they 
ask  me." 

"Not  Reggie,"  I  said. 

"Yes,  Reggie.  If  he  asks  me.  Reggie's  the  very  last 
person  I  should  think  of  lying  to." 

It  was  this  attitude  of  hers  that  first  shook  me  in  my 
conclusions.  For  I'm  afraid  I'd  come  to  certain  very 
definite  conclusions. 


MY  BOOK  73 

Why,  I  asked  her,  hadn't  she  told  them  before  she 
came? 

"Because,"  she  said,  "there's  no  use  worrying  them. 
They'd  have  tried  to  stop  me.  You  can't  imagine  what 
an  awful  fuss  they'd  have  made.  I  daresay  I  might  never 
have  got  off  at  all." 

What  I  couldn't  understand  was  her  attitude.  I  mean 
I  couldn't  reconcile  the  secrecy  she  had  practised  with  her 
amazing  frankness  now. 

Her  manner  was  supremely  assured. 

It  wasn't,  mind  you,  the  brazen  assurance  of  a  woman 
who  has  been  found  out  and  flings  up  the  game;  it  was 
a  curiously  tranquil  and  patient  candour,  with  something 
mysterious  about  it,  as  if  she  had  knowledge  that  I  couldn't 
have,  and  bore  with  me  through  all  my  ignorance  and 
blundering.  In  fact,  from  beginning  to  end,  except  for  the 
one  moment  when  I  upset  her  by  telling  her  about  Keggie's 
sailing,  she  showed  an  extraordinary  tranquillity. 

But  as  I  couldn't  understand  her  I  simply  said,  "I  wish 
you  hadn't  got  off." 

She  said  in  that  same  quiet  way,  "I  had  to." 

"Because,"  I  said,  "he  made  you." 

Since  she  had  dragged  Jevons  in  she  should  have  him 
in.  I  wasn't  going  to  keep  him  out  now  to  spare  her. 
I  had  a  right  to  know  the  truth.  She  had  shaken  my 
conclusions.  She  had  left  me  in  a  doubt  more  unbearable 
than  any  certainty,  and  I  considered  that  I  had  a  right 
to  know.  I  was  determined  to  know  now  and  end  it.  That 
shows  that  I  must  have  trusted  her;  that  I  knew  she 
wouldn't  lie  to  me. 

"But,"  she  said,  with  the  least  perceptible  surprise,  "he 
didn't  make  me." 

"He  told  me  he  did." 

"He  told  you  ?— What  did  he  say  exactly  ?" 


74  THE  BELFRY 

"He  said — if  you  must  know — that  he  hadn't  brought 
you,  but  that  he  had  made  you  come." 

"He  didn't.  He  didn't  really.  But  supposing  he  had 
—what  then  ?" 

"You  want  me  to  tell  you  what  I  think  of  it  ?" 

"Yes." 

"I  think  it  was  a  beastly  thing  to  make  you  do.  He 
couldn't  have  done  it — you  know  he  couldn't  have  done 
it — if  he  hadn't  been  a  bit  of  a  blackguard." 

I  was  going  to  say,  "as  well  as  a  bounder" ;  but  I  didn't 
want  to  rub  that  in.  I  judged  that  when  the  poor  child 
came  to  her  senses  her  cup  would  be  full  enough  without 
my  pouring. 

"But,  you  see,"  she  said,  still  peaceably,  "he  didn't 
do  it.  He  only  said  he  did.  That  was  his  niceness.  He 
wanted  to  save  me." 

"My  dear  child,  if  it's  saving  you  to  bring  you  out  here 
without  your  people  knowing  anything  about  it,  and  to 
let  you  be  seen  with  him  everywhere " 

"He  didn't  bring  me.  He  said  he  wished  I  could  come 
with  him.  And  I  said  I  wished  I  could.  I  almost  asked 
him  to  take  me ;  and  he  said  he  couldn't.  Then  he  went 
off  by  himself.  He  was  all  right  till  he  got  to  Bruges. 
Then  he  wrote  and  said  that  the  beauty  of  it  hurt  him, 
that  it  was  awful  being  here  without  me,  and  that  he  was 
coming  back  at  the  end  of  the  week  without  seeing  any 
more  of  it,  because  he  couldn't  bear  to  know  what  I  was 
missing.  He  was  going  to  keep  the  other  places  till  we 
could  see  them  together.  So  I  wired  to  say  I  was  coming, 
and  I  came." 

"What  did  you  do  it  for,  Viola  ?" 

"Wally,  I  asked  myself  that  as  soon  as  I  got  into  the 
train.  And  it  wasn't  till  I  was  half  across  the  Channel 
that  I  knew  why." 


MY  BOOK  75 

She  stopped  and  stared  as  if  at  the  wonder  of  herself 
explained. 

"I  did  it  to  burn  my  boats." 

I  suppose  I  stared  at  that.    For  she  expounded: 

"To  make  it  impossible  to  go  back." 

I  said,  "My  dear  child,  that  was  very  reckless  of  you." 

She  said  she  wanted  to  be  reckless.  I  asked  hej  if  it 
didn't  occur  to  her  that  some  day  she  might  want  her 
boats? 

She  said:  No.  It  was  just  her  boats  that  she  was 
afraid  of.  She  didn't  really  want  them.  She  didn't  want 
— really — to  go  back. 

Then  she  looked  at  me  and  said,  "You  know  Jimmy 
wants  to  marry  me."  And  then,  "Did  you  know  ?" 

I  said  I  was  not  in  Jevons's  confidence,  but  I  had 
guessed  as  much.  I  said,  "Do  you  want  to  marry  him  ?" 

She  said,  "Yes.  I  want  to  marry  him  more  than  any- 
thing. I  don?t  want  to  marry  anybody  else.  I  never 
shall  marry  anybody  else.  Most  of  me  wants  to  marry 
Jimmy.  But  there's  a  little  bit  of  me  that  doesn't.  It's 
mean  and  snobbish — and  dreadful,  and  it's  afraid  to 
marry  him.  And,  you  see,  if  I  were  to  go  to  my  people 
and  say,  'I'm  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Furnival ;  I'm  going 
to  marry  Mr.  Jevons/  and  I  were  to  show  Jimmy  to  them, 
they'd  all  get  up  and  side  with  that  horrid  and  shameful 
little  bit  of  me.  Reggie  would,  too.  It  wouldn't  be  in 
the  least  horrid  or  snobbish  of  them,  you  know,  because 
they  wouldn't  know  what  Jimmy's  really  like.  They're 
just  very  fastidious  and  correct.  But  it's  simply  awful 
of  me,  because  I  do  know." 

"It  isn't  awful.  It  simply  means  that  he  isn't  your 
sort.  You're  fastidious  and  correct.  You  cant  marry 
him,  and  you  know  it.  You  won't  be  able  to  bear  it.  He'll 
make  you  shudder  all  down  your  spine." 


76  THE  BELFRY 

"All  that  doesn't  prevent  my  caring  for  him.  I  care 
for  him  more  than  for  anything  on  earth,  even  Reggie. 
That's  why  I've  burned  my  boats.  So  that  I  may  have 
what  I  care  for  without  their  tearing  me  to  pieces  over  it." 

So  far  was  I  from  understanding  her  that  it  struck  me 
that  what  she  was  telling  me  was  as  ugly  a  thing  as  could 
be  told  in  words;  that  she  was  confessing  that,  being  too 
weak  to  stand  up  against  her  family,  she  had  deliberately 
compromised  herself  with  Jevons  so  that  she  might  marry 
him  without  their  opposition ;  just  as  I  was  sure  that  Jev- 
ons had  compromised  her  so  that  he  could  marry  her 
without  opposition  from  herself. 

"But — what  you  are  saying  is  horrible,"  I  said.  "I 
don't  believe  you  know  how  horrible  it  is." 

So  far  was  she  from  understanding  me  that  she  an- 
swered :  "Yes,  it  is  horrible.  But  it  was  only  a  little  bit 
of  me.  And  it's  all  over.  Burned  away,  Wally.  I  burned 
it  when  I  burned  my  boats.  Don't  think  of  me  as  if  I 
were  really  like  that." 

You  see  ?  We  had  been  talking  about  different  things. 
My  mind  had  been  fastened  on  an  external  incident,  ugly 
in  itself,  ugly  in  its  apparent  purpose,  ugly  in  its  conse- 
quences, ugly  every  way  you  looked  at  it.  Hers  had 
been  concentrated  on  the  event  that  had  happened  in  her 
soul,  an  event  to  her  altogether  beautiful — the  destruc- 
tion of  the  cowardice  that  would  have  brought  her  back, 
that  shrank  from  taking  the  risk  that  her  soul  dared. 

This,  she  seemed  to  say,  is  how  I  deal  with  cowardice. 

That  she  had  compromised  herself  by  dealing  with  it 
in  this  way  had  simply  never  occurred  to  her.  It  couldn't. 
She  didn't  know  and  wouldn't  have  believed  it  possible 
that  people  did  these  things. 

What  had  frightened  her,  she  said,  was  Jimmy's  saying 
that  about  keeping  the  other  places  till  they  could  see  them 


MY  BOOK  77 

together.  He  meant,  you  see,  till  they  were  married.  It 
brought  it  so  home  to  her.  And  it  brought  home  to  her 
what  it  meant  to  him.  Because  he  couldn't  afford  to 
marry  yet  for  ages. 

If  she'd  gone  back,  she  said,  it  would  have  been  so  cruel 
to  him.  And  it  would  have  been  so  cruel  to  herself,  too. 

Then  she  told  me  what  they  had  done  together.  Heav- 
ens! How  she  must  have  trusted  him.  She  joined  him 
here  in  Bruges.  And  they'd  gone  to  Antwerp,  then  to 
Ghent,  then  back  to  Bruges.  (I  had  followed  close  on 
their  traces,  a  day  behind  them  at  each  city.) 

And  it  had  all  been  so  beautiful.  She  simply  couldn't 
tell  me  how  beautiful  it  had  been.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
never  seen  anything  properly  before. 

Jimmy  had  made  her  see  things.  "I  can  understand," 
she  said,  "what  he  meant  when  he  said  that  the  beauty  of 
this  place  hurt  him.  It  hurts  me." 

I  reminded  her  that  Jimmy  had  said  it  hurt  him 
because  she  wasn't  there. 

She  looked  up  and  smiled.    "He  isn't  here  now,  Furny." 

I  took  her  to  Ostend  first  thing  in  the  morning  and  saw 
her  on  to  the  boat.  I  advised  her  to  remove  the  foreign 
labels  from  her  trunk  at  Dover,  and  to  contrive  so  that 
she  shouldn't  be  seen  arriving  by  the  up  platform  at 
Canterbury. 

"Oh,"  she  said.    "You  have  to  take  some  risk !" 

We  were  on  the  gangway,  saying  good-bye.  And  from 
the  boat's  gunwale  she  flung  me  buoyantly,  "If  I'm  caught 
I'll  say  it  was  you  I  went  off  with.  They  won't  mind 
that  half  so  much." 

I  went  back  to  Bruges  the  same  day  and  found  Jevons 
disconsolate  where  I  had  left  him  in  his  hotel.  I  took 
him  to  Brussels  in  the  hope  of  finding  Withers  there  and 


78  THE  BELFRY 

confusing  him  in  his  ideas.  We  didn't  find  him.  He  had 
gone  on  into  Germany,  carrying  with  him  his  impression 
of  Viola  and  Jevons  staying  together  at  Bruges  in  the 
same  hotel. 

It  was  at  Bruges  that  I  said  to  Jevons,  "By  the  way, 
Miss  Thesiger  says  you  didn't  make  her  come.  She  pro- 
posed coming  herself." 

He  flushed  furiously  and  denied  it.  "Of  course  I  made 
her  come.  It  wasn't  likely  she'd  propose  a  thing  like 
that." 

His  chivalry  was  up  in  arms  to  defend  her.  But  I 
could  see  also  that  his  vanity  wasn't  going  to  relinquish 
the  manly  role  of  having  made  her  come  to  him. 

Well,  I  suppose  in  a  sense  he  had  made  her. 


IV 

WE  didn't  stay  in  Brussels  more  than  a  day  or  two. 
Jevons  didn't  like  it.  He  had  become  sentimentally  at- 
tached to  Bruges,  and  he  wasn't  happy  till  I  took  him 
hack  there.  I  can't  say  he  was  exactly  happy  then  except 
in  so  far  as  he  may  have  enjoyed  his  own  suicidal  gloom. 
I  wasn't  very  happy  either.  All  my  recollections  of  Bruges 
are  poisoned  by  Jevons's  gloom  and  by  my  own  miserable 
business  of  looking  after  him  and  seeing  that  he  didn't 
walk  gloomily  into  any  of  the  canals.  As  for  seeing 
Bruges,  I  don't  know  to  this  day  whether  the  Belfry  is 
beautiful  or  not.  I  only  know  that  it  stood  there  in  the 
grey  sky  like  an  immense  monument  to  the  melancholy  of 
Jevons.  He  made  me  horribly  uneasy.  I  thought  every 
day  that  if  he  didn't  walk  into  a  canal  he'd  have  another 
fit  of  jaundice. 

He  seemed  to  be  suffering  chiefly  from  remorse,  and 
oddly  enough  it  was  this  remorse  of  his  that  gave  me  the 
measure  of  his  essential  innocence,  as  if  Viola  hadn't  given 
it  me  already. 

It  was  in  his  dejection  that  he  showed  his  tact.  He 
had,  for  our  remarkable  circumstances,  the  right  manner. 
If  Jevons  had  been  jaunty;  if  he  had  tried  to  brazen  it 
out,  I  should  have  hated  him.  As  it  was,  his  misery  might 
be  poisonous,  but  it  was  most  disarming.  So  was  his  trust 
in  me.  He  realized  that  he  had  got  Viola  into  the  devil 
of  a  mess,  and  he  looked,  intelligently,  to  me  to  get  her 
out  of  it.  And  with  the  same  confiding  simplicity  he  put 

79 


8o  THE  BELFRY 

himself  into  my  hands  now.  The  adventure  had  shaken 
his  nerve  and  he  was  afraid  of  himself,  afraid  of  doing 
some  supremely  foolish  thing  like  following  Viola  to 
Canterbury.  I  believe  he  would  have  consented  to  stay 
in  Bruges  long  after  the  term  I  had  imposed  if  I  had  told 
him  it  was  necessary. 

I  said  I  took  him  to  Brussels  and  brought  him  back  to 
Bruges.  He  submitted  to  be  brought  and  taken;  to  be 
banged  about  in  trains  and  omnibuses,  to  be  fetched  and 
.carried  like  a  parcel.  He  let  me  feel  in  the  most  touching 
manner  that  my  presence  was  a  comfort  to  him,  while  he 
recognized  that  his  might  be  anything  but  a  comfort  to  me. 
I  know  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  Jevons's  melancholy. 
The  fat  proprietor  and  his  wife  (who  smiled  at  us  by 
way  of  encouragement  in  our  passages  to  and  fro  before 
their  bureau),  these  thralls  of  Jevons's  odd  fascination, 
had  confided  to  me  that  he  had  been  much  worse  the  day 
before  I  came.  The  poor  gentleman  could  neither  eat 
nor  sleep;  other  guests  in  the  hotel  had  come  upon  him 
wandering  by  himself  at  strange  hours  on  the  quays. 
(There  were  a  good  many  English  in  Bruges  that  spring.) 

I  was  greatly  relieved  by  these  disclosures ;  they  testified 
to  the  fact  that  Jevons,  at  any  rate  on  Viola's  last  day, 
had  been  seen  very  much  by  himself. 

We  had  not  spoken  of  Viola  since  the  day  when  I  had 
come  back  from  Ostend  after  seeing  her  off.  I  can't 
recall  much  of  what  we  did  talk  about,  but  I  remember 
that  Jevons's  remarks  were  always  interesting,  and  that 
in  his  lucid  intervals  he  laid  himself  out  to  be  amusing. 
In  one  respect  only  he  had  deteriorated.  Jevons's  strong 
language  was  no  longer  strong.  It  came,  if  it  came  at 
all,  in  brief  spurts,  never  with  the  passionate  rush,  the 
gorgeous  colour,  the  sustained  crescendo  of  his  first  run- 


MY  BOOK  8 1 

nings.  It  was  a  thing  of  feeble  cliches  that  might  have 
passed  in  any  drawing-room. 

We  didn't,  then,  talk  about  Viola.  But  I  know  that 
he  heard  from  her  and  that  I  didn't. 

The  first  week  of  Jevons's  fortnight  was  up  when  I  got 
a  wire  from  Canterbury.  It  said:  "Reggie  sailed  yester- 
day. Trouble.  Can  you  come  Canterbury  at  once. 
Viola." 

Of  course  the  word  that  stuck  out  of  it  was  "Trouble." 
For  the  rest  it  was  ambiguous.  I  couldn't  tell,  neither 
could  Jevons,  whether  the  trouble  was  connected  some- 
how with  Reggie's  sailing,  or  whether  in  announcing  his 
departure  she  meant  to  intimate  that  Jevons  might  now 
return  to  England;  the  coast  was  clear.  Jevons,  I  may 
say,  took  this  view  of  it  and  I  did  not.  It  was  I  and  not 
Jevons  who  was  asked  to  come  at  once.  Jevons,  for  Viola's 
present  purposes,  was  ignored. 

With  his  usual  intelligence  he  saw  my  point.  We  made 
out  that  the  message  suggested  trouble  with  Viola's  family, 
and  he  agreed  heartily  that  he  was  not  precisely  the  person 
to  deal  with  that. 

Oh  yes,  he  trusted  me.  He  gave  me  his  word  of  honour 
that  he  would  stay  in  Bruges  until  I  either  sent  for  him 
or  came  back  to  fetch  him. 

Before  I  left  I  had  a  straight  talk  with  him. 

I  pointed  out  to  him  (what  he  said  he  knew  as  well  as 
I  did)  that  on  the  most  lenient  view  of  his  case  he  had 
compromised  Miss  Thesiger  very  seriously.  But,  I  said, 
he  would  have  had  to  have  compromised  her  more  seriously 
still  before  her  people  would  consent  to  her  marrying  him. 
He  must  see  that,  with  what  he  had  done,  by  stopping 
short  of  what  he  might  have  done,  he  had  made  himself, 
if  anything,  more  unacceptable  than  he  was  to  begin  with. 
She  might — she  probably  would  in  her  present  mood — 


82  THE  BELFRY 

insist  on  marrying  him  without  their  consent.  On  the 
other  hand,  she  just  mightn't.  And  it  wasn't  as  if  he 
could  afford  to  marry  her  at  once,  while  her  present  mood 
was  on. 

He  said,  No.  But  in  six  months  he  could  afford  it. 
He  gave  himself  six  months. 

I  said,  Anything  might  happen  in  six  months.  Miss 
Thesiger's  present  mood  (which,  I  put  it  to  him,  was  very 
much  made  up  of  old  Flemish  glamour)  might  change. 
And  if  it  did,  it  was  just  conceivable  that  she  might  marry 
me.  He  was  determined  to  marry  Miss  Thesiger  if  he  got 
the  chance.  I  was  determined  to  marry  Miss  Thesiger  if  / 
got  the  chance.  At  the  present  most  of  the  chances,  I 
owned,  were  in  his  favour.  But  there  was  just  the  off- 
chance  in  mine. 

And  that  off-chance,  I  told  him  plainly,  I  meant  to 
make  the  most  of.  I  wouldn't  be  human  if  I  didn't.  I 
wasn't  taking  any  unfair  advantage  of  him,  considering 
the  tremendous  innings  he  had  had  in  Flanders,  with  the 
Flemish  atmosphere  to  help  him.  If  I  could  make  any 
running  in  Canterbury,  with  the  Canterbury  atmosphere 
to  help  me  (he  owned  very  handsomely  that  it  would 
help  me,  that  I'd  be  "in  it"  quite  beautifully)  why,  I'd 
make  it. 

Had  he  anything  to  say? 

He  looked  at  me  very  straight,  with  just  the  least  per- 
ceptible twinkle,  and  he  said,  "All  right,  old  man,  cut  in, 
and  take  your  chance.  I'll  risk  it." 

I  got  to  Canterbury  in  the  early  evening  and  went 
straight  from  my  Fifteenth  Century  hotel  to  the  Thesigers' 
house  in  the  Close.  I  spotted  it  at  once.  It  was  all  old 
red  brick  and  grey  stone  like  the  Tudor  houses  in  John's 
and  Margaret's  Quad. 


MY  BOOK  83 

I  asked  for  Miss  Viola  Thesiger  and  was  shown  into 
the  Canon's  library.  To  my  great  relief  the  Canon  wasn't 
in  his  library.  It  looked  out  on  to  a  perfect  garden  with 
a  thick  green  lawn,  and  an  old  red-brick  wall,  very  high, 
all  round  it,  and  tall  elms  topping  the  wall,  and  long  beds 
of  wallflowers  and  tulips  blazing  away  underneath  it. 
I  said  to  myself,  "If  I  want  atmosphere  I've  got  it.  Bruges 
is  nothing  to  the  Thesigers'  garden  in  Canterbury  Close." 
I'd  time  to  take  it  all  in,  for  Viola  kept  me  waiting. 

I  was  glad  of  the  peace  of  the  garden,  for  I'd  taken 
in  more  atmosphere  than  I  wanted  already  as  I  came 
through  the  house.  You  went  upstairs  to  the  Canon's 
library,  and  along  a  narrow  black-oak  corridor.  And  in 
passing  I  was  aware  of  a  peculiar  quietness  everywhere. 
It  wasn't  simply  the  quietness  and  laziness  of  the  Cathe- 
dral Close.  It  was  something  in  the  house.  I  felt  it  as 
I  crossed  the  threshold  and  the  hall.  It  was  the  sum  of 
slight  but  definite  impressions :  the  sudden  silence  of  voices 
that  were  talking  somewhere  when  I  came  in ;  the  shutting 
of  a  door  that  stood  ajar;  the  withdrawal  of  footsteps  ap- 
proaching on  the  landing. 

It  was  as  if  there  had  been  a  death  in  the  house ;  as  if 
its  people  shrank  and  hid  themselves  in  their  bereavement. 
I  might  have  been  the  undertaker  called  in  to  help  them 
to  bury  their  dead. 

The  trouble  was  strictly  confined  to  the  Thesigers' 
house.  From  the  tennis-lawns  under  the  high  walls  of 
other  gardens  there  came  shouts  of  girls  and  of  young 
men  at  play. 

Presently  Viola  came  to  me.  She  held  her  head  if 
anything  higher  than  usual,  and  the  expression  of  her 
face  was  out  of  keeping  with  the  trouble  in  the  air.  But 
as  she  came  nearer  I  saw  that  this  gay  face  was  white,  its 


84  THE  BELFRY 

tissue  had  a  sort  of  sick  smoothness,  and  there  were  dark 
smears  under  her  eyes. 

The  poor  child  had  paid  her  tribute  to  the  Trouble. 

She  said,  "It  is  good  of  you  to  come.  Did  you  mind 
awfully?" 

I  said,  of  course  I  didn't.  She  smiled  again,  the  little 
white,  blank  smile  she  had  for  me  in  those  days,  and  I 
asked  her  what  had  happened. 

She  said,  "Everything's  happened.    It's  been  awful." 

Her  smile  took  on  significance — the  whole  wild  irony 
of  disaster.  Then  she  said,  "They  know." 

"All  of  them?     Your  brother?" 

"No.  Not  Reggie.  He  got  away  in  time.  They  won't 
tell  him.  They  won't  even  tell  Bertie.  They'll  never  talk 
about  it.  But  they  know." 

I  said,  "Supposing  they  do  know — as  long  as  other 
people  don't " 

"But,  Wally,  that's  just  it.    Everybody  does  know." 

I  couldn't  take  her  quite  seriously  yet.  I  asked  her: 
Was  it  the  labels?  and  she  said,  No,  she'd  picked  all  the 
foreign  ones  off  at  Dover,  and  she  got  the  Dover  ones  off  in 
the  cab  coming  home,  and  she'd  had  Heaven's  own  luck 
at  the  station,  nobody'd  seen  her  on  the  up  platform,  and 
her  people  thought  she'd  come  from  London.  Of  course 
they  all  asked  her  where  she'd  been,  and  she  told  them 
she  wasn't  going  to  let  on  just  yet,  that  it  wasn't  good  for 
them  to  know  too  much,  and  that  if  they  behaved  them- 
selves they'd  know  some  day.  She  meant  to  tell  them 
as  soon  as  ever  Reggie'd  gone.  "Really  and  truly,  Wally, 
I  meant  to  tell  them." 

"And  do  you  know,"  she  said,  "they  thought  I  was 
rotting  them,  that  I'd  been  in  some  stuffy  place  in  the 
country  all  the  time." 

"Then  how  on  earth,"  I  said,  "did  they  find  out  ?" 


MY  BOOK  85 

"They  didn't.  They  never  do  find  out  things.  They 
heard — last  night.  Somebody  saw  us." 

"Withers?"  I  said.  I'd  thought  of  Withers  at  once." 
But  he  didn't  seem  likely.  He  wasn't  back  yet. 

"2STo.  Not  Withers.  Some  women  who  knew  my  uncle, 
General  Thesiger.  They  were  in  your  hotel  in  Bruges, 
and  they  knew  some  other  women  staying  in  the  pension. 
They  saw  my  name  in  the  visitors'  book  and  it  excited 
them.  It  all  comes,  you  see,  of  my  uncle  being  so  beastly 
distinguished,  so  that  they  had  to  say  they  knew  him. 
And  then  of  course  the  other  people  chipped  in  and  told 
them  all  they  knew  about  me.  Can't  you  see  them  doing 
it?" 

I  could  indeed. 

"I  never  thought  the  pension  was  a  good  scheme,"  she 
said ;  "but  poor  Jimmy  would  make  me  go  to  it.  He  said 
it  was  safe.  You  see  how  safe  it  was." 

I  wasn't  quite  clear  yet  as  to  where  Jevons  came  in. 

"You  say  these  people  saw  you.  You  mean  they  saw 
you  and  Jevons?" 

She  smiled  more  than  ever.  "No,  Wally.  It  was  you 
they  saw." 

I  don't  know  whether  I  was  glad  or  sorry.  I  believe  I 
was  both.  I  was  glad  that  Jevons — the  ugly  element — 
was  disposed  of.  I  was  sorry — sorry,  indeed,  is  hardly 
the  word  for  what  I  felt — when  I  thought  of  the  impres- 
sion Viola's  family  had  of  me  now;  of  the  terms  on  which 
I  should  be  received  into  it  if  I  were  received  into  it  at 
all.  I  couldn't  clear  myself  entirely,  you  see,  without 
dragging  in  Jevons,  and  for  Viola's  sake  Jevons  had  at 
any  cost  to  be  suppressed. 

"What  on  earth,"  I  said,  "must  your  people  think  of 
me?" 

She  said  surprisingly,  "They  think  you  a  perfect  dear." 


86  THE  BELFRY 

"What,  for  carrying  you  off  to  Belgium  ?  That's  what 
I  seem  to  have  done.  I  don't  quite  see  how  I'm  to  get 
out  of  it  unless  we  can  persuade  them  that  we  met  by 
accident." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "/  got  you  out  of  it  all  right." 

I  asked  her,  "How?" 

She  said,  "I  told  them  the  truth.  I  said  it  wasn't  you ; 
it  was  Jimmy." 

"What  did  you  do  that  for?" 

"Because  it  was  Jimmy  I  went  off  with.  You're  all 
right.  They  know  it's  Jimmy." 

I  groaned.  "That's  precisely  what  I've  been  trying  to 
prevent  them  knowing." 

"They  know  that,  too.  I  told  them  that  you  came  out 
to  look  for  me — like  a  lamb,  to  save  me — and  that  you 
made  me  come  back.  They  think  that  was  dear  of  you." 

She  paused  on  it  with  a  tenderness  that  touched  me. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "I've  saved  you." 

I  could  only  say,  "My  dear  child — have  you  saved  your- 
self?" 

She  was  visibly  troubled. 

"I  think — I  think  they  believe  me.  They  say  they  do. 
But  they  don't  understand.  That's  why  I  sent  for  you.  I 
want  you  to  make  them  see." 

"Make  them  see  what?"  I  said.  (It  was  clumsy  of 
me.) 

"What  it  really  was,"  she  said. 

I  asked  her  if  they  knew  I  was  there.  She  said,  Yes, 
they  were  coming  in  to  see  me. 

"They  want  to  see  you.    They  want  to  know." 

I  saw  then  what  my  work  was  to  be.  I  was  not  only 
to  witness  to  her  innocence  and  Jevons's — if  they  doubted 
it;  I  was  to  show  them  what  she  had  shown  me  in  the 


MY  BOOK  87 

garden  at  Bruges,  the  beauty  of  the  whole  thing  as  it  ap- 
peared to  her.    I  was  to  show  them  Jevons's  beauty. 

Well,  I  thought,  it'll  take  some  showing. 

"Do  they,"  I  asked  her,  "at  all  realize  Jevons  ?" 

"Yes.  They  asked  me  if  he  was  the  man  Reggie  met 
at  my  rooms.  Of  course  I  had  to  say  he  was.  It's  almost 
a  pity  Reggie  met  him.  That's  what's  frightened  them. 
You  see,  he  only  saw  the  funny  part  of  him." 

(I  could  imagine  what  Reggie's  description  .of  the  funny 
part  of  Jevons  had  been.) 

I  said  she  was  asking  me  to  do  a  rather  difficult  thing. 

She  said,  "Yes.  And  I've  made  it  worse  by  telling  them 
I'm  going  to  marry  Jimmy." 

"And  I'm  to  persuade  them  that  that's  the  best  thing 
you  can  do,  am  I  ?" 

She  said,  Yes — if  I  could  do  that 

I  said  I  couldn't.  I  couldn't  persuade  myself.  How 
could  I,  when  I  was  convinced  that  the  best  thing  she 
could  do  was  to  marry  me? 

She  said  she'd  forgotten  that  and  that  I  could  leave  the 
marrying  part  of  it  to  her.  "It's  about  Bruges,"  she  said, 
"that  I  want  you  to  tell  them." 

"I  can't  very  well  if  they  don't  ask  me,"  I  expounded. 

"Oh,  but,"  she  said,  "they  will  ask  you.  At  least  Daddy 
will." 

i 

It  was  at  this  point  (when,  I  must  say,  we  had  thrashed 
it  out  pretty  thoroughly)  that  Mrs.  Thesiger  came  in. 
Viola  left  me  to  her. 

I  noticed  that,  except  for  the  moment  of  Viola's  formal 
introduction  of  me,  neither  of  them  spoke  to  or  looked  at 
the  other. 

I  have  said  that  Mrs.  Thesiger  was  a  charming  woman. 
I  may  have  said  other  things  that  imply  she  was  not  so 


88  THE  BELFRY 

charming ;  those  things,  if  I  really  said  them,  I  take  back, 
now  that  I  have  come  to  my  first  meeting  with  her.  When 
I  recall  that  ten  minutes — it  didn't  last  longer — I  cannot 
think  of  her  as  otherwise  than  perfect.  It  took  perfection, 
of  a  sort,  to  deal  creditably  with  the  situation.  Nothing 
could  well  have  been  more  painful  for  Mrs.  Thesiger.  I, 
an  utter  stranger,  was  supposed  to  know  all  about  her 
daughter,  to  know  more  than  she  or  any  of  them  knew. 
I  held  the  secret  of  those  dubious  seven  days  in  Belgium. 
That  the  days  would  be  dubious  I  must  have  known  when 
I  set  out  to  bring  Viola  back  from  Belgium.  I  must,  the 
poor  lady  probably  said  to  herself,  have  known  Viola. 
And  my  knowledge  of  her,  so  dreadful  and  so  intimate, 
was  a  thing  she  was  afraid  of;  she  didn't  want  to  come 
too  near  it.  But  it  was  also  a  thing  that  must  be  exceed- 
ingly painful  to  me.  She  conceived  that  I  would  dread 
her  approach  every  bit  as  much  as  she  dreaded  mine. 

And  so — and  so  Mrs.  Thesiger  ignored  my  knowledge; 
she  ignored  the  situation.  Beautifully  and  consistently, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  my  stay  in  Canterbury, 
she  ignored  it. 

She  had  come  in  now  to  bring  me  her  invitation,  and 
her  husband's  invitation,  to  stay.  Her  husband,  she  said, 
expected  me.  He  was  out ;  he  had  had  to  go  to  a  Diocesan 
Meeting — but  it  would  be  over  by  now,  the  tiresome  meet- 
ing, and  he  would  be  here  in  a  few  minutes. 

I  protested.  I  had  taken  rooms  at  my  Fifteenth  Cen- 
tury hotel. 

She  insisted.  They  could  make  that  all  right.  They 
knew  the  hotel-keeper.  He  was  used  to  having  people 
taken  from  him  at  the  last  minute.  They  would  send 
round  for  my  things.  My  room  was  waiting  for  me. 

I  said,  Eeally? — But  they  were  too  kind 

She  said,  No.    It  was  the  least  they  could  do. 


MY  BOOK  89 

This,  with  its  faint  suggestion  of  indebtedness,  was  as 
near  as  she  got  to  the  situation. 

She  must  have  sighted  it  in  the  distance,  for  she  slanted 
away  from  it  with  a  perilous  and  graceful  sweep.  She 
had  heard  so  much  about  me  from  her  daughter.  She 
had  wanted  to  make  my  acquaintance.  She  was  glad  of 
this  opportunity 

(We  smiled  at  each  other  to  show  that  there  was  noth- 
ing to  wince  at  in  her  phrase.) 

I  said  I  was  glad  of  it  too,  and  what  a  charming  gar- 
den they  had. 

Wasn't  it  ?  And  did  I  know  Canterbury  ?  I  wished  I 
did.  Well — I  would  know  it  now.  And  if  I  didn't  mind 
ringing  the  bell  the  butler  would  fetch  my  things  over 
from  the  "Tabard."  And  so  on,  charmingly,  till  the 
Canon  came  in  and  relieved  her. 

She  had  done  very  well. 

He,  dear,  charming  man,  did  the  same  thing,  and  did 
it  even  better.  That's  to  say,  he  had  a  beautiful  voice 
and  he  was  happier  in  his  phrases.  He  could  ignore  with 
the  greater  ease  because  he  wouldn't  have  to  keep  it  up 
so  long. 

He  kept  it  up  till  dinner-time.  Only  now  and  then  his 
kind,  keen  look  at  me  told  me  that  he  was  going  to  have 
it  out  with  me,  and  that  he  was  measuring  the  man  with 
whom  he  would  have  to  do. 

But  before  dinner  they  had  taken  me  to  my  room.  They 
hoped  I  wouldn't  mind  having  Bertie's  room.  The  house 
was  full;  all  the  girls  were  at  home,  so  they  had  had  to 
give  me  Bertie's  room. 

As  I  dressed  in  Bertie's  room  (the  drawback  of  it  was 
that  it  looked  bang  out  on  to  the  Cathedral  Tower  and  was 
fairly  raked  by  the  chimes),  with  the  Cathedral  Tower 
before  my  eyes  and  the  Cathedral  chimes  in  my  ears,  and 


90  THE  BELFRY 

Canon  Thesiger's  beautiful  voice  and  Mrs.  Thesiger's 
beautiful  face  and  the  beautiful  manners  of  both  of  them 
in  my  memory,  it  came  over  me  with  renewed  conviction 
that  Jevons  was  impossible;  that  Viola's  people  knew 
and  felt  he  was  impossible;  that  Viola  knew  and  felt  he 
was  impossible  herself ;  and  that  in  the  face  of  all  this  im- 
possibility I  had  a  chance.  Bruges  might  back  Jevons, 
but  Canterbury  would  never  back  him;  whereas  it  was 
quite  evident  that  Canterbury  was  backing  me. 

I  was  in  the  drawing-room  ten  minutes  before  dinner- 
time. They  were  all  there :  the  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger 
and  their  five  unmarried  daughters — Victoria,  the  eldest, 
Millicent,  the  High  School  teacher,  Mildred,  the  nurse, 
Viola,  the  youngest  but  one,  and  Norah,  the  youngest. 

They  were  all  there,  the  whole  seven  of  them.  And 
they  were  all  silent  until  I  appeared.  As  I  went  down 
the  stairs  and  through  the  hall  I  noticed  that  the  door 
was  open  and  that  no  sounds  came  through  it.  I  caught 
sight  of  Viola  standing  by  the  window  with  her  back  to 
her  family;  the  others  sat  or  stood  in  attitudes  averted 
from  her  and  from  each  other. 

When  they  heard  me  they  all  stirred  and  began  talking. 
And  as  I  came  into  the  room  I  found  the  girls  drawn  to- 
gether (even  Viola  had  turned  from  her  window). 

I  see  them  now :  Canon  Thesiger  standing  on  the  hearth- 
rug, looking  handsome;  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  beside  him, 
looking  handsome,  too,  in  grey  silk  and  a  little  flushed.  I 
hadn't  realized  in  our  first  meeting  how  handsome  they 
both  were,  and  how  brilliantly  unlike.  He  was  well-built, 
slender,  aquiline,  clean-cut  and  clean-shaven ;  he  had  thin, 
beautiful  lips  that  he  held  in  stiffly ;  he  had  dark  eyes  like 
his  son  Keggie's,  and  dark  hair  parted  correctly  in  the 
middle,  hair  that  waved.  He  had  tried  to  depress  and  sub- 
due it  by  hard  brushing  with  a  wet  brush,  but  it  continued 


MY  BOOK  91 

to  wave  in  spite  of  him,  and  the  crests  of  the  waves  were 
silver,  which  accentuated  them. 

Mrs.  Thesiger  was  tall  and  at  the  same  time  plump. 
She  was  fair  and  blue-eyed  and  still  delicately  florid ;  she 
had  perfect  little  features,  with  mutinous  upward  curves 
in  the  plumpness.  I  say  mutinous,  because  Mrs. 
Thesiger's  way  of  being  handsome  was  in  revolt  against 
her  husband's.  Her  light-brown  hair  waved,  too,  and  to 
a  discreet  extent  she  encouraged  its  waving.  This  sounds 
as  if  Mrs.  Thesiger's  appearance  was  frivolous.  But  it 
was  not.  All  these  florid  plumpnesses  and  the  upward 
curves  were  held  in  tight,  like  Canon  Thesiger's  mouth. 
Their  intentions  were  denied  and  frustrated,  the  original 
design  was  altered  to  harmonize  with  his.  Herein  you  saw 
the  superior  restraint,  the  superior  plasticity,  the  su- 
perior art  of  Mrs.  Thesiger. 

It  was  all  very  well  for  him  to  be  correct  when  his 
features  were  formed  that  way,  but  this  was  the  very 
triumph  of  correctness. 

And  she  was,  if  anything,  braver  than  her  husband. 
He  could  only  just  smile  with  his  stiff  lip ;  she  could  laugh 
over  the  business  of  presenting  me  to  the  four  unmarried 
daughters  whom  (she  emphasized  it)  I  didn't  know. 

And  they — the  four  daughters — I'm  not  sure  that  they 
weren't  the  most  gallant  of  this  gallant  family. 

I  suppose  that  it  was  the  violent  dissimilarity  in  their 
parents'  beauty  that  had  produced  the  engaging  irregu- 
larity of  their  features.  Not  one  of  those  five  little  faces 
was  correct.  Victoria's  had  tried  hard  for  correctness 
in  her  father's  manner,  but  her  mother's  irrepressible 
plumpness  had  made  her  miss  it,  poor  girl,  just  as  (I  was 
soon  to  learn)  she  had  missed  everything. 

Millicent's  face,  the  face  of  the  one  who  had  been  at 
Girton,  hadn't  tried  for  it;  it  had  achieved  a  plainness 


92  THE  BELFRY 

I  admired  because  it  was  oddly  like  Viola's  face,  only  that 
Millicent  was  sallow  and  thin  and  dry  and  wore  pince-nez. 

Mildred,  the  nurse,  was  frankly  plump  and  fair  and 
florid  like  her  mother;  her  face  would  have  been  pretty 
if  her  father's  nose  hadn't  stepped  in  and  struggled  with 
her  mother's  and  so  spoilt  it  for  her. 

IvTorah,  the  youngest,  was  pretty — and  odd.  She  was 
Viola  all  over  again,  but  more  slender  and  coloured  dif- 
ferently, coloured  all  wrong.  I  didn't  take  to  Norah  all 
at  once.  I  wasn't  prepared  for  a  Viola  with  blue  eyes  and 
pink  cheeks  and  light  hair,  and  the  figure  of  a  young  foal. 
Besides,  her  hair  was  outrageous;  it  waved  too  much;  it 
was  all  crinkles,  and  she  hadn't  found  out  yet  how  to  keep 
it  tidy. 

She  told  me  afterwards  it  was  "up"  that  evening  for 
the  first  time.  When  it  came  to  her  turn,  she  said: 
"There  are  such  a  dreadful  lot  of  us,  aren't  there  ?" 

There  certainly  was.  And  as  I  looked  at  them  I 
thought:  Viola  has  done  an  irreparable  injury  to  her 
family,  to  all  these  charming  people.  She  has  hurt  her 
father  and  mother  in  their  beauty  and  their  dignity  and 
their  honour.  As  for  her  sisters,  she  has  ruined  what  they 
are  much  too  well-bred  to  call  their  "chances."  The  story 
of  the  going  off  to  Belgium  with  Jevons  is  spreading 
through  the  Close,  and  through  the  High  School  where 
Millicent  teaches,  and  through  the  garrison.  They  will 
try  to  hush  it  up,  but  they  won't  be  able  to ;  it  will  reach 
Chatham  and  Dover.  If  they  go  up  to  town  it  will  follow 
them  there.  Wherever  they  go  it  will  ultimately  follow 
them.  She  has  struck  at  the  solidarity  of  the  family.  To 
be  sure,  it  was  the  solidarity  of  the  family  that  drove 
her  to  strike  at  it.  But  if  you  were  to  tell  Canon  and  Mrs. 
Thesiger  that  they  had  driven  her,  that  they  had  tied  her 
up  too  tight,  they  wouldn't  see  it.  They  would  say :  "We 


MY  BOOK  93 

never  stopped  her  going  off  to  London.  But  that  wasn't 
enough  for  her.  She  must  go  off  to  Belgium  with  that  man 
Jevons.  She  must  ruin  us." 

And  Viola  knew  that  she  had  ruined  them. 

And  there  they  were,  all  holding  themselves  well,  and 
all  well  dressed — the  two  youngest  in  white,  the  elders  in 
light  colours  on  a  scale  that  deepened  to  Victoria's  old 
rose.  I  remember  them,  even  to  what  they  wore  and  the 
pathos  of  their  wearing  it;  they  stood  out  so  against  the 
black  panelling  of  the  old  room.  It  was  full  of  oak  chests 
and  bureaus  and  Chinese  cabinets,  and  Madonnas  in  Ital- 
ian frames,  and  red  and  white  ivory  chessmen,  and  little 
bookcases  with  books  in  white  vellum  with  scarlet  title- 
pieces,  and  family  portraits,  and  saints  in  triptychs  on 
golden  backgrounds,  and  murderous  assegais  and  the  skins 
and  horns  of  animals.  And  the  leaves  of  the  old  elms 
stuffed  up  the  low,  mullioned  windows  looking  on  the 
garden. 

And  somehow  you  were  aware  of  great  streams  of  em- 
pire and  of  race,  streams  of  august  tradition ;  of  sanctity 
and  heroism  and  honour,  and  beautiful  looks  and  gentle 
ways  and  breeding,  all  meeting  there. 

I  looked  at  the  Thesigers  and  I  looked  at  all  these  things, 
and  I  thought  again  of  Jevons — of  Jevons  as  absolutely 
impossible.  You  may  say  it  was  pure  snobbishness  to 
think  of  him  in  that  way,  and  I  daresay  it  was ;  but  there 
wasn't  any  other  way. 

It  wasn't  their  tradition,  you  see,  that  appealed  to  me 
so  much  as  their  behaviour.  I  don't  think  I  ever  met  peo- 
ple who  knew  so  well  how  to  behave. 

They  kept  it  up.  All  evening  they  behaved  like  people 
under  some  heavy  calamity  which  they  ignored  for  the 
comfort  of  their  guest  and  for  their  own  dignity.  And 
yet,  even  if  I  hadn't  known  of  their  calamity,  I  must  have 


94  THE  BELFRY 

felt  it  in  the  air.  They  knew  that  I  knew  it ;  but  that  was 
all  the  more  reason  why  they  should  ignore  it ;  they  wanted 
to  remove  from  me  the  oppression  of  my  knowledge. 

During  dinner,  perhaps,  you  felt  the  tension  of  the  ca- 
tastrophe; any  guest  who  knew  as  much  as  I  did  was 
bound  to  be  aware  of  it.  It  was  in  little  sudden,  mo- 
mentary silences,  in  the  hushed  voices  and  half-scared 
movements  of  the  butler  and  the  parlourmaid,  in  the  stiff- 
ness of  the  Canon's  lip,  and  in  some  shade  of  the  elder 
girls'  manner  to  Viola. 

I  remember  how,  in  one  of  those  silences,  Norah,  who 
sat  facing  me,  leaned  forward  and  addressed  me.  She 
said,  "Mr.  Furnival,  you've  come  from  Belgium,  haven't 
you?  Do  tell  me  about  it!  I  can't  get  a  word  out  of 
Viola." 

I  supposed  they  hadn't  told  Norah.  They  had  spared 
the  youngest.  She  was  only  seventeen. 

The  butler  and  the  parlourmaid,  standing  rigid  by  the 
sideboard,  looked  at  each  other  in  their  fright.  Mrs. 
Thesiger  saw  them  and  flushed.  But  Canon  Thesiger,  who 
had  his  back  to  them,  observed  that  Belgium  was  a  large 
order,  and  that  Mr.  Furnival  would  have  to  tell  her  about 
it  afterwards. 

But  there  was  never  any  afterwards  for  Norah.  She 
said,  "I  believe  there's  a  joke  about  Belgium,  and  that  Mr. 
Furnival's  in  it." 

Viola  laughed.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  the  best  thing 
she  could  do.  If  I'd  giggled,  too,  it  might  have  helped,  but 
I  didn't  dare  to,  sitting  there  beside  Mrs.  Thesiger. 

The  Canon  pushed  a  dish  of  chocolates  in  front  of  his 
youngest  daughter  to  keep  her  quiet,  and  then  plunged 
like  a  hero  into  the  tendencies  of  modern  music,  which  he 
deplored.  He  asked  my  opinion  of  Richard  Strauss,  a 
composer  of  whom  he  was  profoundly  ignorant.  Scarlatti 


MY  BOOK  95 

and  Corelli  tided  us  over  dessert,  and  Purcell  floated  us 
tenderly  into  the  drawing-room  and  coffee.  After  coffee 
the  Canon  took  me  into  the  library  (he  said)  for  a  smoke. 

I  could  see  by  the  fuss  he  made  about  his  cigarettes 
that  he  was  nervous,  staving  off  the  moment. 

It  came  with  the  silence  of  the  first  cigarette.  There 
were  no  transitions.  He  simply  settled  himself  a  little 
deeper  into  his  chair  and  said,  "I'm  a  little  anxious  about 
that  girl  of  mine." 

I  said,  "Are  you,  sir  ?"  as  if  I  were  surprised. 

"Well" — he  was  evidently  trying  to  steer  between  his 
decision  to  ignore  and  his  desire  for  knowledge — "you 
see,  she's  rather  reckless  and  impulsive." 

I  agreed.    She  was — a  little. 

"More  than  a  little,  I'm  afraid.  Do  you  know  any- 
thing of  this  man  Jevons  she  talks  about  ?" 

That  was  masterly  of  the  Canon,  the  subtle  suggestion 
that  Viola  did  no  more  than  talk  about  Jevons,  the  still 
more  subtle  implication  that  if  she  could  talk  about  him 
all  was  well. 

I  said  that  Jevons  was  a  very  decent  fellow,  and  added 
that  Captain  Thesiger  had  met  him. 

It  was  mean  of  me  to  shovel  the  responsibility  on  to 
Reggie,  but  I  wanted  to  gain  time,  too. 

The  Canon  remembered  that  Reggie  had  said  some- 
thing. And  then  suddenly  he  discarded  subtlety  and  told 
me  straight  out  that  Reggie  had  said  Jevons  was  a  bit  of  a 
bounder,  and  he  supposed  he  was. 

I  could  see  him  watching  me,  trying  to  break  down  my 
defences. 

I  dodged  him  with  "These  things  are  comparative,"  and 
he  floored  me  with  a  sudden  thrust : 

"No,  my  dear  boy,  they  are  not." 

He  meditated.    "What  sort  of  age  is  he  f " 


96  THE  BELFRY 

I  told  him,  "About  thirty-one  or  two." 

"Ah !" 

And  then :  Did  I  know  anything  about  the  young  man's 
morals  ? 

I  assured  him  I  had  never  heard  a  word  against  them. 

He  looked  at  me  keenly  and  I  remembered  the  words  of 
Withers  which  I  had  heard.  Still,  I  knew  nothing  against 
Jevons's  morals,  and  I  said  they  were  all  right  for  all  I 
knew. 

"Never  mind  what  you  Tcnow"  he  answered.  "What  do 
you  think  ?" 

I  said  I  thought  that  Jevons  had  as  clean  a  record  as 
any  man  I  knew. 

"You  mean,"  he  said,  "these  things  are  comparative  ?" 

I  said  I  meant  I  only  wished  my  morals  were  as  clean, 
(I  went  as  far  as  that  for  Viola — to  save  her.  Besides, 
there  was  Jevons  to  be  thought  of.  I  was  there  to  take  a 
fair  advantage  of  him,  not  an  unfair  one.) 

He  took  another  look  at  me  that  seemed  to  satisfy  him, 
for  he  said :  "Thank  you.  That's  all  I  want  to  know." 

We  smoked  in  silence.  Presently  we  went  into  the 
drawing-room  "for  a  little  music."  Victoria  played.  The 
Canon  and  Mildred  and  Norah  sang.  Millicent  went  up- 
stairs to  prepare  a  lecture. 

When  the  music  was  over  Viola  and  Mildred  and  Korah 
and  I  went  into  the  garden,  and  very  soon  Mildred  and 
Norah  drifted  back  into  the  house  again  and  left  me  with 
Viola. 

She  began  at  once,  "Well — did  you  make  him  under- 
stand?" 

I  said  I  hadn't  had  much  opportunity. 

Did  he  ask  me  about  Bruges  ?  No,  but  he  had  asked  me 
about  Jevons.  I  told  her  more  or  less  how  I  had  answered, 
and  she  said  it  was  dear  of  me. 


MY  BOOK  97 

"But  it's  no  use  telling  them  anything  about  me, 
Wally." 

I  asked  her,  Had  they  said  much  ? 

She  said,  "No.  It's  what  they  think.  Or  rather,  what 
they  don't  think.  They'll  never  think  the  same  of  me 
again.  And  they'll  never  trust  me." 

I  said,  Come,  it  wasn't  so  bad  as  all  that. 

But  she  stuck  to  it. 

"There !"  she  said.    "Didn't  I  tell  you  3" 

Mrs.  Thesiger  from  the  drawing-room  window  was  call- 
ing to  us  to  come  in.  The  grass  was  damp. 

"They  won't  trust  me  even  with  you." 

I  thought :  "Poor  little  Viola — she's  burned  her  boats 
with  a  vengeance." 

Presently  it  was  Bertie's  room  again,  and  moonlight, 
and  the  Cathedral  chimes.  They  kept  me  awake  all  night. 

Of  course  I  hadn't  made  them  understand.  How  could 
I  ?  The  peculiar  awf  ulness  of  their  calamity  was  that  they 
knew  so  little  about  it.  They  didn't  know,  after  all,  what 
had  happened  at  Bruges;  they  didn't  know  what  lengths 
Viola  had  gone  to.  And  though  they  evidently  thought 
that  I  knew,  that  wasn't  any  good  to  them.  They  couldn't 
ask  me  what  had  happened  at  Bruges.  They  couldn't 
cross-question  me  about  Viola's  "lengths."  I  couldn't  tell 
them  that,  according  to  my  lights,  nothing  had  happened, 
that  Viola's  lengths  were  not  likely  to  be  very  long.  Be- 
sides, even  if  I  had  come  with  the  proofs  of  her  inno- 
cence in  my  hands,  and  removed  their  private  sorrow,  that 
wouldn't  have  repaired  their  public  wrong.  Nobody  was 
going  to  believe  in  Viola's  innocence.  Appearances  were 
dead  against  her. 

It  was  awful  for  them  every  way  they  looked  at  it; 
awful  if  she  married  Jevona  just  because  she  had  to; 


98  THE  BELFRY 

awful  even  if  she  hadn't  to,  so  long  as  people  thought  she 
had;  awful  if  she  married  him  for  any  reason;  more 
awful  if  she  didn't  marry  him  at  all.  And  supposing  she 
married  him.  They  might  go  on  ignoring  for  ever  and 
ever,  but  who  else  would,  with  that  marriage  staring  them 
in  the  face  and  perpetuating  the  disgraceful  memory  ? 

It  struck  me  that  Viola  herself  must  see  that  there  was 
only  one  way  in  which  I  could  make  them  understand, 
only  one  thing  that  I  could  do  for  her,  and  that  I  had 
come  to  do  it. 

The  next  morning  I  asked  Canon  Thesiger  if  he  could 
give  me  half  an  hour.  He  gave  it  with  a  sort  of  sad 
alacrity.  I  didn't  anticipate  the  smallest  difficulty  with 
him  or  with  any  of  Viola's  family.  They  seemed  to  be 
looking  to  me  pathetically  to  save  them.  I  had  every 
reason  to  know  that  my  one  chance  was  good,  and  that 
poor  Jevons,  with  all  his  chances,  wasn't  anywhere.  In 
fact,  I  found  in  that  half-hour  with  the  Canon  that  my 
very  fairness  to  Jevons  had  worked  against  him  to  abase 
him,  while  it  raised  me  several  points  in  the  Canon's  esti- 
mation. He  had  seen  what  I  had  been  driving  at.  The 
cleaner  I  made  out  Jevons's  record  to  be,  the  better  I  suc- 
ceeded in  shielding  Viola.  He  expressed  in  the  most  mov- 
ing terms  his  admiration  of  my  moral  beauty. 

And  yet  (I  suppose  I  must  have  overdone  it)  it  was  my 
moral  beauty  that  dished  me  with  the  Canon.  I  had 
reckoned,  you  see,  without  his,  without  Mrs.  Thesiger's. 

I  told  him  straight  out  that  if  he  and  Mrs.  Thesiger 
would  allow  me,  I  meant  to  ask  Viola  to  marry  me.  His 
lip  stiffened. 

I  said  I  hoped  it  wouldn't  be  a  violent  shock  to  them — 
they  must  have  had  some  idea  of  what  I  had  come  for. 

He  said,  Yes.  They  had  been  afraid  I  had  come  for 
that. 


MY  BOOK  99 

And  then — oh,  it  was  a  terrible  half -hour! 

They  had  been  afraid,  and  they  had  talked  it  over.  He 
didn't  tell  me  all  they'd  said,  but  I  could  imagine  most 
of  it:  how  they  had  seen  that  my  marrying  Viola  was 
the  one  way  out  for  them,  the  one  way  out  for  her,  and 
how  it  had  occurred  to  them  that  perhaps  I  didn't  know 
what  I  was  doing,  and  how  they  had  decided — dear,  sim- 
ple, honourable  people — that  it  would  be  very  wrong  to 
deceive  me,  and  that  in  any  case  they  had  no  right  to 
accept  so  great  a  sacrifice,  even  if  it  was  the  one  way  out. 
I  daresay  they  said  to  each  other  that  they  couldn't  put 
such  a  burden  on  an  innocent  young  man;  it  was  their 
child's  doing  and  they  must  bear  the  whole  ghastly  ruin 
and  shame  of  it  themselves.  They  even  went  further. 
What  Jevons  had  done  to  Viola  (they'd  made  up  their 
minds  about  him)  was  devil's  work.  What  Viola  had  done 
to  them  was  in  some  way  the  expression — the  very  singu- 
lar and  unintelligible  and  bizarre  expression — of  God's 
will.  It  was  the  cross  they  had  to  bear.  God,  I  suppose, 
knew  the  kind  of  cross  that  would  hurt  them  most. 

A  great  deal  of  this  he  did  say  to  me.  He  said  it  very 
simply,  without  phrases. 

Nothing,  he  said,  would  have  pleased  them  better  than 
that  I  should  marry  Viola.  But — he  didn't  think  that  he 
could  let  me  do  it.  If  I  had  only  come  to  him  three 
weeks  ago 

He  hadn't  been  able — naturally — to  talk  about  it  last 
night.  He  had  hoped  he  wouldn't  have  to  say  anything 
about  it  at  all,  but  I  had  forced  him. 

It  couldn't  have  been  worse  if  I'd  seen  him  about  to 
put  a  knife  into  his  breast.  I  tried  to  stop  him,  but  he 
would  do  it,  he  would  put  the  knife  in. 

"We  don't  know,"  he  said,  "what  may  have  occurred 
at  Bruges." 


ioo  THE  BELFRY 

"Nothing  occurred,"  I  said,  "nothing  that  you  need 
mind." 

He  said,  "That's  what  the  child  tells  me." 

And  I,  "Surely,  sir,  you  believe  her  word  ?" 

Of  course — of  course  he  believed  her  word.  Viola,  he 
said,  might  keep  the  truth  from  them  if  (he  smiled  in 
spite  of  himself)  if  she  thought  it  would  not  be  good  for 
them  to  know  it.  But  she  had  never  told  them  an  untruth. 
Never.  She  was — essentially — truthful. 

"Only,"  he  said,  "we  don't  know  what  she  may  have 
been  driven  to.  She  may  have  been  trying  to  shield  that 
man  Jevons." 

I  said  I  was  convinced  that,  technically,  Jevons  was 
innocent.  It  looked  as  if  he  had  been  criminally  reckless 
and  inconsiderate ;  but  he  seemed  to  have  honestly  thought 
that  there  was  no  harm  in  Viola's  joining  him  in  Bruges. 

But  the  Canon  didn't  want  to  know  what  Jevons  had 
thought,  honestly  or  otherwise.  Or  what  Viola  had 
thought.  "It's  what  they've  done,"  he  said.  "You  can't 
get  over  it." 

I  said  what  they'd  done  didn't  amount  to  more  than 
looking  at  the  Belfry.  I  could  very  easily  get  over  that. 

He  said  that  I  was  an  Israelite  indeed.  But  the  world 
wasn't  all  Belfries,  and  we  must  look  at  it  like  men  of  the 
world. 

"They  travelled  together,  Furnival.  They  travelled 
together." 

I  said,  "Yes.  And  it  wasn't  till  they'd  got  to  Bruges 
the  second  time  that  Jevons  realized  that  they  never  ought 
to.  As  soon  as  he  did  realize  it,  he  cleared  out." 

He  did  that  too  late,  the  Canon  insisted.  It  was  no 
good  my  trying  to  shield  Jevons.  It  wasn't  easy  to  be- 
lieve that  Jevons  was  as  innocent  as  Viola,  and,  as  no- 


MY  BOOK  101 

body  was  going  to  believe  it,  the  injury  the  brute  had  done 
her  was  irreparable. 

"Not,"  I  said,  "if  she  marries  me." 

He  said,  "My  dear  boy,  supposing — supposing  it  isn't 
all  as  innocent  as  you  think  ?  You  can't  marry  her." 

I  said  that  made  no  difference.  It  was  all  the  more 
reason. 

All  the  more  reason,  he  insisted,  for  her  marrying 
Jevons. 

That,  he  said,  was  what  they'd  have  to  go  into. 

But  there  I  took  a  high  stand.  I  said  it  was  for  me  to 
go  into  it,  and  if  I  didn't,  why  should  they  ?  If  I  believed 
in  Viola,  surely  they  might?  If  I  knew  that  she  could 
do  nothing  and  feel  nothing  that  was  not  beautiful,  wasn't 
my  knowledge  good  enough  for  them?  I  said,  "I  shall 
go  to  her  at  once  and  ask  her  to  marry  me." 

He  got  up  and  laid  his  hand  on  my  arm.  "No,"  he 
said.  "Not  at  once.  Wait.  Far  better  wait." 

I  asked  him,  "How  long?" 

He  said,  "Till  she's  had  time  to  get  over  him." 

Mrs.  Thesiger  (I  had  half  an  hour  with  her,  too)  said 
the  same  thing.  "Wait,"  she  said,  "at  any  rate,  another 
week." 

She  had  given  her,  as  Jevons  would  have  said,  a  week. 

I  waited. 

I  stayed  with  the  Thesigers  a  week.  In  fact,  I  stayed 
ten  days.  I  got  used  to  the  chimes  and  slept  through 
them.  I  played  chess  with  Mrs.  Thesiger;  I  played  golf 
and  tennis  with  the  girls  and  the  young  subalterns  of  the 
garrison;  I  played  violent  hockey  with  Mildred  and 
Norah ;  I  walked  with  Viola  and  Victoria ;  I  tried  to  talk 
to  Millicent  (Millicent,  I  must  own,  was  a  bit  beyond 
me)  ;  I  played  tennis  again  (singles)  against  Norah,  who 


102  THE  BELFRY 

was  bent  on  beating  me.  We  all  went  for  picnics  with 
the  subalterns  into  Romney  Marshes  and  visited  Win- 
chelsea  and  Eye.  And  in  between  I  was  taken  by  Canon 
and  Mrs.  Thesiger  to  lunch  or  dinner  or  tea  in  the  other 
Canons'  houses,  and  was  introduced  to  the  Dean  and  the 
Archbishop.  I  attended  the  Cathedral  services  to  an  ex- 
tent that  provoked  Viola  to  denounce  me  as  a  humbug. 

I  told  her  I  did  it  in  order  to  look  at  the  finest  spec- 
tacle of  defiance  I  had  ever  seen — the  Canon  in  his  stall 
in  the  chancel  singing  the  solo  in  the  anthem  with  his 
beautiful  voice,  in  the  very  teeth  of  disaster,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened. 

She  said,  "Daddy  is  beautiful,  isn't  he  ?  He  had  a  sore 
throat  for  a  fortnight  after  Aunt  Vicky  died.  And  he 
thinks  this  is  far  worse,  but  he  won't  go  back  on  me.  So 
he  sings." 

I  was  sitting  with  her  in  the  garden  on  the  Sunday 
evening.  I  said  to  her,  "Viola,  you  were  caught  with  the 
beauty  of  Bruges.  Why  can't  you  see  the  beauty  of  all 
this?" 

She  looked  at  me  with  her  great  dark  eyes  (they  were 
very  young  and  brilliant),  and  she  answered,  "Dear  Wal- 
ter, I've  been  seeing  the  beauty  of  it  all  my  life." 

I  was  seeing  it  for  the  first  time. 

I  made  the  most  of  it,  of  the  Canterbury  atmosphere. 
I  sank  into  it  and  felt  it  sinking  into  me.  I  was,  as  Jevons 
had  said  I  should  be,  "in  it." 

And,  as  I  made  my  running,  I  thought  with  some  re- 
morse of  that  unfortunate  one,  languishing  in  Bruges  on 
his  parole.  But  Canterbury  would  have  been  no  use  to 
Jevons  if  he  had  been  there. 

There's  no  doubt  that  I  did  something  for  the  Thesigers 
in  those  ten  days.  I  had  effaced  Jevons's  legend.  I  had 
even  effaced  my  own  legend  (for  the  scandal,  if  you  re- 


MY  BOOK  103 

member,  had  begun  with  me).  And  the  Thesigers  were 
tackling  their  catastrophe  with  dignity  and  courage  and, 
I  think,  considerable  success.  By  having  me  there,  by 
being  charming  to  me,  by  presenting  me  openly  and  hon- 
ourably to  all  their  friends,  they  gave  slander  the  most 
effective  answer.  People  asked  each  other :  Was  it  likely 
that  the  Thesigers  would  receive  young  Furnival  with 
open  arms  if  young  Furnival  had  been  the  man  they'd 
heard  about  ? 

At  the  end  of  my  week  the  whole  seven  of  them  were 
almost  merry.  (I  may  say  Norah,  the  youngest,  had  been 
merry  all  the  time.)  My  visit  lapped  over  into  another 
week. 

At  the  end  of  ten  days  my  relations  with  Canon  and 
Mrs.  Thesiger  became  so  intimate  that  we  could  discuss 
the  situation.  They  could  even  smile  when  I  reminded 
them  that  there  was  one  good  thing  about  it — Canterbury 
didn't,  and  couldn't,  realize  Jevons. 

They  hoped  devoutly  that  it  never  would. 

And  they  thought  it  wouldn't.  By  this  time,  poor  dar- 
lings, they  believed  that  I  had  saved  them;  that  Jevons 
was  an  illness  and  that  Viola  had  got  over  him;  that  I 
had  cured  Viola  of  Jevons. 

I  believed  it  myself.  She  had  avoided  me  most  of  the 
time ;  she  had  left  me  to  her  sisters,  particularly  the  young- 
est, Norah.  And  when  I  was  alone  with  her  she  was  silent 
and  embarrassed.  I  thought:  "She  is  beginning  to  be 
afraid  of  me.  And  that  is  an  excellent  sign." 

The  night  before  I  left  Canterbury  I  asked  her,  for  the 
third  time,  to  marry  me. 

She  said,  "I  know  why  you're  asking  me,  and  it's  dear 
of  you.  But  it's  no  good.  It  can't  be  done.  Not  even 
that  way." 


THE  next  day  I  went  back  to  Bruges  to  release  Jevons 
from  his  parole. 

I  found  him  sitting  tight  in  his  hotel  in  the  Market- 
place, waiting  my  return  with  composure. 

He  had  recovered  in  my  absence  and  had  been  making 
the  best  of  his  internment.  He  had  written  a  series  of 
articles  on  "The  Old  Cities  of  Flanders."  He  worked 
them  up  afterwards  into  that  little  masterpiece  of  his,  "My 
Flemish  Journal,"  which  gave  him  his  European  celebrity 
(it  must  have  made  delightful  reading  for  the  Thesigers). 
There  was  no  delay,  no  reverse,  no  calamity  that  Jevons 
couldn't  turn  into  use  and  profit  as  it  came.  Yes,  I  know, 
and  into  charm  and  beauty.  Viola  Thesiger  lives  in  his 
"Flemish  Journal"  with  an  enduring  beauty  and  charm. 

I  said  I  was  sorry  for  keeping  him  shut  up  in  Bruges 
so  long.  He  said  it  didn't  matter  a  bit.  He  had  been 
very  busy. 

I  thought  it  was  his  articles  and  his  book  (he  had  been 
dreaming  of  it)  that  had  made  Jevons  so  happy.  But  I 
was  mistaken. 

We  spent  half  the  night  in  talking,  sitting  up  in  my  big 
room  on  the  first  floor  for  the  sake  of  space  and  air. 

Jevons  went  straight  to  the  point  by  asking  me  how  I 
had  got  on  at  Canterbury. 

I  felt  that  I  owed  him  a  perfect  frankness  in  return 
for  the  liberties  I  had  taken  with  him,  so  I  told  him  how 
I  had  got  on. 

104 


MY  BOOK  105 

He  said,  "I'm  not  going  to  pretend  to  be  astonished. 
But  you  can't  say  I  didn't  play  fair.  I  gave  you  your 
innings,  didn't  I  ?" 

I  said  I'd  had  them,  anyhow.    We'd  leave  it  at  that. 

He  said,  No.  We  couldn't  leave  it  at  that.  He'd  givep, 
me  my  innings.  He  could  have  stopped  my  having  them 
any  minute,  but  he'd  made  up  his  mind  I  should  have 
them.  So  that  nobody  should  say  afterwards  he  hadn't 
played  fair. 

I  remember  perfectly  everything  that  Jevons  said  to  me 
that  night.  I  am  putting  it  all  down  so  that  it  may  be 
clear  that  what  the  Thesigers  called  the  beauty  of  my  be- 
haviour was  nothing  to  the  beauty  of  his.  Think  of  him, 
shut  up  there  in  his  hotel  in  Bruges,  giving  me  my  in- 
nings, when  he  could  have  struck  in  and  won  the  game 
without  waiting  those  horrible  ten  days. 

Well,  I  suppose  he  knew  that  he  had  it  in  his  hands 
all  the  time. 

"You  see,"  he  went  on,  "I  knew  you'd  got  one  chance, 
and  I  meant  you  to  have  it.  I  meant  you  to  make  the 
most  of  it.  There  are  things,  Furnival,  I  haven't  got  the 
hang  of — yet — little,  little  things  like  breeding  and  good 
looks,  where  you  might  get  the  pull  of  me  still  if  you  had 
a  free  hand. 

"Well,  I  gave  you  a  free  hand. 

"You  needn't  thank  me.  I  wasn't  thinking  of  you  so 
much.  I  was  thinking  of  Viola.  I  wanted  to  be  per- 
fectly fair  to  her.  If  there  was  a  chance  of  her  liking  you 
better  than  she  liked  me,  and  being  happier  with  you,  I 
wanted  her  to  have  her  chance.  I  wanted,  you  see,  to  be 
rather  more  than  fair.  If  I  was  going  to  win  this  game 
I  was  going  to  win  it  hands  over,  not  just  to  sneak  in  on 
a  doubtful  point.  I  wanted  Viola  to  know  what  she  was 
doing.  I  wanted  her  to  see  exactly  what  she  was  giving  up 


106  THE  BELFRY 

if  she  married  me — to  go  home  and  see  it  all  over  again  in 
case  she  had  forgotten. 

"And  of  course  I  was  thinking  of  myself  too.  I'm  an 
egoist.  For  my  own  sake  I  wanted  her  to  be  quite  sure  she 
hadn't  any  sort  of  hankering  after  you." 

I  said  if  it  was  any  comfort  to  him  he  could  be.  Viola 
hadn't  any  hankering  after  me  at  all.  This — if  he  cared 
to  know  it — was  the  third  time  that  I  had  proposed  to 
her  and  been  turned  down. 

He  said  he  did  care  to  know  it,  very  much.  It  was 
most  important. 

"I,"  he  said,  "have  never  proposed  to  her  at  all. 

"That,"  he  went  on,  "is  just  the  one  risk  I  wouldn't 
take. 

"And  there,"  he  explained,  "is  where  I've  scored.  I 
knew  that  Viola  is  obstinate,  and  that  if  she  starts  by 
turning  you  down  she'll  keep  it  up  out  of  sheer  cussed- 
ness. 

"So  I  never  let  her  start.  Women,"  he  generalized, 
"admire  success.  If  I  were  to  give  you  your  innings  all 
over  again,  Furnival — and  I  will  if  you  like — you  couldn't 
make  anything  of  them  with  those  three  howlers  to  your 
account.  There  isn't  any  record  of  failure  against  me. 
Good  God!  D'you  suppose  7'd  be  such  a  damn  fool  as 
to  muff  it  three  times  with  the  same  woman  ?  Not  me !" 

I  said  he  needn't  rub  it  in. 

He  said  he  was  rubbing  it  in  for  my  good,  so  that  I 
shouldn't  go  and  do  the  same  thing  next  time. 

"Because — now  we're  coming  to  the  point — there  will 
be  a  next  time  for  you,  Furnival.  That's  why  I  don't 
even  pretend  to  be  sorry  for  you.  There'll  be  other  women. 
But  there  aren't  any  next  times  for  me,  and  there  aren't 
any  other  women.  This — I  mean  she — was  my  one  chance. 
It  was  pretty  jumpy  work,  I  can  tell  you,  sitting  tight 


MY  BOOK  107 

and  gambling  with  it  for  ten  blasted  days.  Any  other 
man  would  have  gone  clean  off  his  chump  with  worrying 
over  it.  There've  been  times  when  I've  felt  like  it  myself. 
It  was  infernal — when  you  think  what  I  stood  to  lose." 

I  said  that  was  all  rot.  It  was  his  beastly  egoism.  He 
didn't  stand  to  lose  more  than  I  did. 

He  said  it  wasn't  a  question  of  more  or  less.  And  it 
wasn't  his  egoism.  It  was  his  sweetness  and  his  heart- 
rending humility.  He'd  stood  to  lose  everything.  He'd 
be  done  for  if  Viola  wouldn't  have  him.  He  couldn't  look 
at  any  other  woman  after  her.  And  he  put  it  to  me: 
What  other  woman  would  look  at  him  ?  Whereas  my  re- 
sources were  practically  inexhaustible.  Almost  any  nice 
woman  would  know  that  I  would  give  her  what  she  wanted. 
And  almost  any  nice  woman  would  give  me  what  I  wanted, 
too.  When  I  insisted  that  I  didn't  see  it,  he  said  I'd  see 
it  shortly.  He  gave  me  six  months. 

Viola,  he  declared,  would  never  have  given  me  what  I 
wanted.  I  could  never  give  her  what  she  wanted.  And 
he  could. 

He  said  he  admitted  that  it  was  odd  that  he  should  be 
able  to  succeed  where  I  failed ;  but  so  it  was,  and  he  went 
on  to  expound  to  me  all  the  reasons  for  my  failure. 

"To  begin  with,  you're  not  her  sort;  or,  rather,  you're 
too  much  her  sort.  You  with  your  integrity  are  one  of 
the  beautiful  works  of  God,  and  she's  been  used  to  that  sort 
of  beauty  all  her  life  and  she's  tired  of  it.  But  she  isn't 
used  to  me.  She  never  will  be.  She's  never  seen  any- 
thing in  the  least  like  me  before,  and  she  never  will  see 
anything  quite  like  me  again  as  long  as  she  lives.  I'm 
the  queer,  unexpected  thing  she  wants  and  always  will 
want. 

"But  let  that  pass. 

"You  couldn't  get  her  because  you  didn't  give  your 


108  THE  BELFRY 

mind  to  it.  You  didn't  know  how  to  get  her  and  you 
didn't  try  to  find  out.  You  set  about  it  the  wrong  way. 
I  told  you  ages  ago  that  a  man's  a  fool  if  he  wants  a  thing 
and  doesn't  find  out  how  to  get  it.  You  should  have  he- 
gun  by  trying  to  find  out  something  about  her.  But  you 
didn't  try.  With  all  your  opportunities  you  haven't  found 
out  anything.  You  don't  know  the  least  thing  about  her. 
You  don't  know  what  she  wants,  you  don't  know  what  she's 
thinking,  or  what  she's  feeling,  or  what  she'll  do — how 
she'll  behave  if  you  propose  to  her  three  times  running. 
She's  told  you  things  and  you  haven't  understood  them  or 
tried  to  understand.  Because  the  whole  blessed  time  you 
were  thinking  about  yourself,  or  what  she  was  thinking 
about  you,  or  was  going  to  think.  Whereas  I  haven't  been 
thinking  about  anything  but  her — I've  been  studying  her 
straight  on  end  for  ten  months  and  I've  found  out  a  little 
bit  about  her.  At  any  rate,  I  jolly  well  know  what  she 
wants  and  I  jolly  well  know  how  to  give  it  her. 

"You  see,  I  was  determined  to  get  her,  and  I  left  no 
stone  unturned.  I  took  trouble." 

I  suggested  that  7'd  taken  trouble  enough  in  all  con- 
science. He  laughed. 

"You  only  took  trouble  to  get  her  away,  old  man,  when 
she  wanted  to  be  here  with  me.  What  do  you  suppose  I 
brought  her  here  for?  Would  you  have  ever  thought 
of  letting  her  come  with  you?  Of  giving  her  what  she 
wanted  to  that  extent?  Not  you!  You'd  only  have 
thought  of  shutting  her  up  and  protecting  her  for  your 
own  wretched  sake — which  was  the  last  thing  she  wanted. 
She'd  had  about  enough  of  that." 

I  replied  that  certainly  I  should  have  thought  of  pro- 
tecting a  young  girl  before  everything  else;  that  it  never 
would  have  occurred  to  me  to  compromise  her  in  order  to 


MY  BOOK  109 

marry  her — even  if  I  did  find  I  couldn't  marry  her  in  any 
other  way. 

I  had  hit  him  there.  He  was  quiet  for  a  little  while 
after  it.  I  didn't  look  at  him — I  didn't  want  to  look  at 
him — but  I  could  feel  him  there,  breathing  hard  from  the 
shock  of  it,  with  his  mouth  a  little  open. 

Presently  he  took  the  thing  up  again.  He  went  on, 
placably,  quietly  explaining.  "I  thought  of  protecting 
her  too.  Only  I  wasn't  such  an  idiot  as  to  think  of  it  be- 
fore everything  else." 

"No.  You  were  clever  enough  to  think  of  it  afterwards 
— when  you'd  got  what  you  wanted.  When  you  had  com- 
promised her." 

"I  suppose  you  mean  there  was  only  one  thing  I  wanted  ? 
There,  Furnival,  you  lie." 

I  said  I  only  meant  that  she  was  compromised.  At 
any  rate,  that  was  what  it  looked  like  to  her  people  and 
to  everybody  to  whom  it  mattered. 

"If  you  will  persist  in  taking  the  ugliest  view  of  it,  of 
course  it'll  look  like  that.  I  can't  help  how  it  looks  to  a 
set  of  old  ladies  and  clergymen  in  Canterbury.  Come  to 
that,  it  matters  a  damned  sight  more  to  me  than  it  can  to 
any  of  you  people." 

I  said  he  wouldn't  say  so  if  he  knew  how  he  had  made 
them  suffer. 

He  laughed  out  at  that. 

"Suffer  ?  They  haven't  suffered  a  quarter  as  much  as  I 
have.  Not  a  hundredth  part  as  much.  They've  suffered 
thinking  of  themselves — of  their  precious  respectability. 
I've  suffered  thinking  of  her. 

"Suffer  ?  I've  been  through  all  that.  It  wasn't  right, 
Furnival,  it  wasn't  right  for  anybody  to  have  to  go  through 
what  I  did.  But  I've  come  out  of  it.  You've  been  pretty 


no  THE  BELFRY 

hard  on  me  with  your  infernal  virtue;  but  if  you  think 
you  can  make  me  suffer  more,  you  can't.  I'm  past  it." 

I  said  I  was  sorry  if  I  seemed  too  hard  on  him.  But  it 
would  be  well  if  he  tried  to  look  at  his  really  very  out- 
rageous behaviour  as  it  was  bound  to  appear  to  other  peo- 
ple. 

"You  admit,  then/'  he  said,  "that  it  appears  more  out- 
rageous than  it  is?" 

I  said,  "You  see,  my  dear  fellow,  I  don't  yet  know  what 
it  is." 

He  asked  me  if  I'd  like  to  know  what  it  was  ?  And  I 
told  him  that,  certainly,  some  sort  of  an  account  was  owing 
and  that  he'd  better  perhaps  make  a  clean  breast  of  it 
while  he  was  about  it. 

Well — he  made  his  clean  breast. 

He  confessed  that  the  sting  of  a  great  deal  that  I  had 
said  to  him  was  in  its  truth.  I  needn't  be  frightened. 
Nothing  had  happened.  Nothing  beyond  what  I  knew. 
But — there  was  a  point,  he  said,  when  everything  might 
have.  When  he  had  meant  that  it  should  happen. 

He  hadn't  meant  it  at  first.  Nothing  had  been  further 
from  him  when  he  let  her  come  to  Bruges.  He  had  meant 
nothing — nothing  beyond  looking  at  the  Belfry.  He  had 
thought — as  she  did — that  it  would  be  quite  possible  to 
be  content  with  looking  at  the  Belfry.  That  was  where 
the  damned  folly  of  the  thing  had  come  in.  They  began 
to  be  aware  of  the  folly  when  they  found  themselves  going 
together  to  Antwerp.  He  wasn't  aware  even  then  of  what 
he  meant.  But  he  knew  what  he  meant  when  he  left  Ant- 
werp and  took  her  to  Ghent. 

Because  he  did  take  her  there.  He  meant — then — 
exactly  what  Viola's  father  and  her  brother  and  her  uncles 
and  her  male  cousins  would  mean  if  they  took  a  woman 
to  Ghent. 


MY  BOOK  in 

"I  meant,"  he  said,  "to  compromise  her.  But — here's 
where  you  went  wrong — I  didn't  mean  to  compromise  her 
in  order  to  marry  her.  I  didn't  mean  to  marry  her  at  all. 
There  was  a  moment  when  I  thought  that  marrying  me — 
tying  herself  up  to  me  for  ever — was  a  risk  I  ought  not  to 
let  her  take.  I  thought — I  thought  I  could  make  her 
happy  without  all  that  awful  risk.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  after  the  risk  we  had  taken  we  had  a  right  to  happi- 
ness. Certainly  she  had.  And  I  thought  she  thought  the 
same. 

"So  I  took  her  to  Ghent. 

"I  say  I  thought  she  knew  what  I  meant  when  I  took 
her. 

"I  ought  to  tell  you  that  we  did  have  rooms  in  the  same 
hotel  in  Antwerp  and  Ghent.  There  weren't  any  English 
there  that  mattered — nobody  that  either  of  us  knew. 

"But  when  I'd  got  her  to  Ghent  I  couldn't — I  don't 
know  how  it  was — but  it  came  over  me  that  I  couldn't — I 
hadn't  the  courage.  I  think  I  found  out  that  she  was 
afraid  or  something.  We'd  taken  rooms  in  that  hotel  you 
were  in  in  the  Place  d'Armes.  We  were  sitting  together 
in  the  lounge — you  know  that  big  lounge  on  the  first  floor 
with  the  glass  partition  in  it  along  the  staircase — you  can 
see  people  through  it  going  up  and  down  stairs.  She'd  got 
up  suddenly  and  stuck  out  her  hand  and  said  good  night. 
And  there  was  a  look  in  her  eyes — Fright,  a  sort  of  fright. 

"I  saw  her  through  the  glass  going  up  the  stair.  When 
she  got  to  the  landing  I  saw  her  turn  her  head  over  her 
shoulder  and  look  down  into  the  lounge,  to  make  sure  I 
was  still  there. 

"She  looked  so  helpless  somehow — and  so  pretty — that 
for  the  life  of  me  I  couldn't. 

"No. 


ii2  THE  BELFRY 

"I  took  her  back  to  Bruges  the  next  morning  and  put 
her  in  the  pension  with  those  women." 

I  thought  of  the  irony  of  it. 

If  Jevons  had  really  been  the  blackguard  he  seemed  we 
could  have  hushed  it  up.  If  he  hadn't  repented,  if  he 
hadn't  taken  her  back  to  Bruges  and  put  her  in  the  pension 
with  those  women,  ten  to  one  Withers  wouldn't  have  seen 
them  and  General  Thesiger's  friends  wouldn't  have  heard 
of  them.  I  should  have  got  her  quietly  away  from  Ghent 
without  Canterbury  being  a  bit  the  wiser. 

But  I  didn't  tell  Jevons  that.    I  hadn't  the  heart  to. 

We  stayed  three  days  longer  in  Bruges.  There  were 
still  some  odd  corners  of  the  city  that  he  hadn't  had  time 
to  look  up. 

Jevons  was  very  kind  to  me  all  those  three  days. 

After  we  got  back  to  England  Jevons's  affairs  picked  up 
and  went  forward  with  a  rush.  His  novel  came  out  at 
the  end  of  May.  In  June  he  was  made  sub-editor  of  Sport, 
and  thus  acquired  a  settled  income.  And  one  morning  in 
July  I  got  a  letter  from  Viola  written  at  Quimpol  in 
Brittany : 

"Mr  DEAR  WALTER  : 

"I  married  Jimmy  five  days  ago.  Nobody  but 
Norah  knew  anything  about  it  till  it  was  all  over.  But 
I  wrote  and  told  Daddy  before  we  left  England.  I'm 
afraid  he's  had  a  sore  throat  ever  since.  I  wish  you'd  go 
down  to  Canterbury  and  tell  them  that  it's  all  right  and 
that  I'm  ever  so  happy.  There  really  isn't  any  reason  why 
Daddy  shouldn't  sing. 

"As  Koran  says:  'It's  his  not  singing  that  gives  the 
show  away.'  Yours  ever, 

"V.  J." 

END  OF  BOOK  I 


BOOK   II 
HER  BOOK 


BOOK   II 

HER   BOOK 

VI 

I  DID  not  go  down  to  Canterbury  all  at  once.  I  was 
vowed,  of  course,  to  Mrs.  Jevons's  everlasting  service  (I 
think  I've  succeeded  in  making  that  clear),  but  I  could 
not — under  the  whacking  blow  of  her  marriage  I  could  not 
do  as  she  asked  me  then  and  there.  The  reminiscences 
of  Canterbury  were  poignant.  I  had  to  have  a  little  time 
to  recover  in.  And  in  those  first  terrible  weeks  I  didn't 
see  why  Jevons  should  have  all  the  amusement  and  I  all 
the  hard  work  and  the  suffering.  I  knew  that  Jevons  had 
suffered,  too — quite  horribly — but  his  anguish,  after  all, 
was  a  thing  of  the  past ;  while  mine,  in  full  career,  devas- 
tated the  present  and  the  future.  I  had  done  my  best  for 
them,  and  I  could  not  share  Viola's  view  that  it  was  my 
business  to  go  on  whitewashing  Jevons  for  ever.  There 
was  a  limit,  at  any  rate,  to  the  number  of  coats  I  could 
contract  to  put  on  him. 

So  I  waited.  I  waited  till  they  came  back  from  their 
half  honeymoon  in  Brittany  (a  fortnight  was  all  the  editor 
of  Sport  could  spare  to  his  subordinate).  Then  at  her 
invitation  I  went  up  to  Hampstead  to  see  them. 

They  had  found  an  old  four-roomed  cottage  that  had 
once  been  a  labourer's.  It  was  whitewashed  (Viola  was 
fond  of  whitewash),  and  all  the  wood-work  was  painted 
green,  and  there  was  a  strip  of  green  garden  in  front  with 
a  green  paling  round  it. 

A  furniture  van  that  you  could  have  packed  the  house 
in  stood  in  the  Grove  outside  it,  and  big,  burly  men  in 

115 


Ii6  THE  BELFRY 

white  aprons  were  taking  furniture  out  of  the  van  and 
dumping  it  down  in  the  garden.  Some  of  it  wouldn't  go 
in  at  the  gate  and  had  to  be  lifted  over  the  palings. 

Jevons  in  an  old  Norfolk  suit  and  with  his  hair  rumpled 
was  standing  on  a  ten-foot  plot  of  grass  contemplating  a 
bed-tester  and  four  bed-posts  that  leaned  up  against  the 
palings  in  the  embrace  of  a  bedstead  turned  upon  its  side, 
and  Viola  in  the  upper  window  was  contemplating  Jevons. 

He  called  to  her,  "Have  you  measured  ?"  And  she  an- 
swered, "Yes.  He  says  it  can't  be  done.  Oh,  there's 
Furny!" 

Jevons  turned  to  me  with  a  smile  addressed  to  the  bed- 
tester  rather  than  to  me.  Viola  came  down  to  us  fol- 
lowed by  a  tall  stout  carpenter,  visibly  her  slave. 

The  carpenter  was  saying:  "That  there  room  is  out  by 
a  good  four  inches — by  a  good  four  inches  'tis.  An'  the 
way  you've  got  to  look  at  it  is  this,  m'm.  Not  as  this  'ere 
tester  is  too  'igh  fer  that  ceilin',  but  how  as  that  there 
ceilin'  is  too  low  fer  this  tester." 

"Quite  so,"  said  Jevons.  "And  in  that  case  you've  got 
to  raise  the  ceiling  four  inches." 

"No,  sir,"  said  the  carpenter  (he  spoke  severely  to 
Jevons).  "You  'ave  not.  If  I  take  you  orf  a  two  inch 
from  each  leg  of  that  there  bedstead,  and  a  two  inch  from 
each  of  them  there  postsis,  it'll  be  the  same  as  if  the  builder 
'e  raised  you  the  ceilin'  a  four  inch." 

"By  Jove,"  said  Jevons.    "So  it  will." 

"Ay,  and  it'll  corst  you  somethin'  like  four  shillin',  in- 
stead of  p'raps  a  matter  of  forty  pound.  Wen  it  comes 
to  tamperin'  with  ceilin's,  you  never  know  where  you  are." 

"I  don't  know  where  I  am  now,"  said  Jevons,  "but  it 
might  be  better  to  leave  the  ceiling  alone.  They  haven't 
started  tampering,  have  they  ?" 

"No,  sir.     They  have  not." 


HER  BOOK  117 

Viola  ordered  the  carpenter  to  go  into  the  study  again 
and  measure  for  those  bookshelves.  He  was  her  slave  and 
he  went. 

"Jimmy's  been  going  on  like  that  all  day,"  she  said. 
"He's  taken  up  hours  of  that  man's  time.  We  shall  never 
get  him  out  of  the  house." 

"I  don't  want  to  get  him  out  of  the  house,"  said  Jevons. 
"I'm  awfully  happy  with  him." 

He  was  happy  (like  a  child)  with  everything,  with  his 
house  and  his  garden  and  his  furniture,  his  oak  chests  and 
the  dresser  and  the  bureau,  above  all  he  was  happy  with  his 
bed-tester.  He  said  he  had  never  slept  under  a  bed-tester 
in  his  life,  and  he  was  dying  to  know  what  it  would  be 
like — to  lie  there  with  hundreds  of  dear  little,  shy  little 
chintz  rosebuds  squinting  down  at  you. 

"You'll  not  lay  under  them  rosebuds,  not  for  a  twenty- 
four  hour " 

The  carpenter  had  come  back  to  us.  He  treated  Jevons 
exactly  like  a  child. 

"That  tester  can't  be  set  up  to-night.  Not  unless,  as  I 
say,  you  squeeges  of  it  jam  tight  between  the  ceilin'  and 
the  floor.  An'  then  you'll  'ave  to  prise  the  ceilin'  up  every 
time  you  moves  of  it,  else  you'll  start  them  postsis  all 
a  twistin'  and  a  rockin',  an'  'ow'll  you  feel  then  ?" 

Jevons  said  he  felt  frightened  to  death  as  it  was,  and 
the  carpenter  could  have  it  his  own  way  provided  he  didn't 
hurt  the  little  rosebuds  or  frighten  them;  and  the  car- 
penter sighed  and  said  that  the  study  was  ten  by  thirteen 
and  would  take  a  hundred  and  sixteen  feet  of  bookshelves. 

"Let's  go  and  look  at  the  study,"  said  Viola.  And  we 
went  and  looked  at  it.  And  the  carpenter  came  up  and 
looked  at  us.  And  the  foreman  and  the  other  men  came 
in  with  furniture  and  things  out  of  the  garden,  and  they 
looked  at  us.  There  wasn't  one  really  large  and  heavy 


ii8  THE  BELFRY 

piece  of  furniture  except  the  four-post  bed  and  the  tester, 
and  they  treated  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke,  as  a  funny 
game  they  were  helping  two  small  children  to  play  at. 
And  when  Viola  and  Jevons  ought  to  have  been  telling 
the  men  what  things  were  to  go  into  which  room  and 
where,  they  ran  back  into  the  garden  to  see  what  flowers 
they  would  plant  in  it  and  where. 

Then  they  took  me  to  look  all  over  the  house.  It  was  an 
absurd  house.  Of  its  four  rooms  there  was  one  in  front 
that  served  as  a  dining-room  and  a  drawing-room  and  a 
boudoir  for  Viola,  and  there  was  a  kitchen  at  the  back,  and 
a  bedroom  over  the  front  room,  and  Jevons's  study  was 
over  the  kitchen.  Viola  said  there  were  six  rooms  if  you 
counted  the  pantry  and  the  bathroom,  and  they  were  going 
to  put  a  settee  in  Jimmy's  study  that  would  turn  into  a 
bed  when  anybody  came  to  stay.  And  Mrs.  Pavitt  knew 
a  nice  woman  who  would  come  in  and  scrub  for  them,  and 
sleep  in  the  kitchen  when  they  weren't  there. 

They  showed  me  the  little  bits  of  furniture  they'd  got. 
Jevons  had  a  passion  for  beautiful  old  things,  for  old  rose- 
wood bureaus  and  chests  of  drawers  with  brass  handles. 
She  pointed  out  the  brass  handles. 

I  felt  that  the  poor  child  was  showing  me  her  absurd 
house  and  telling  me  all  these  things  because  there  wasn't 
and  there  hadn't  been,  and  perhaps  there  never  would  be 
anybody  else  to  tell  them  to.  I  thought  of  the  mother  and 
the  four  sisters  down  at  Canterbury  and  of  the  other  two 
who  were  married,  who  had  been  married  so  differently. 
There  was  something  queer,  something  wrong  about  it  all. 
I  believe  the  very  workmen  felt  that  it  was  so  and  were 
sorry  for  her. 

When  they  had  all  gone  away  at  six  o'clock  Jevons  and 
I  took  our  coats  off  and  settled  down  for  three  solid  hours 
to  the  serious  work  of  moving  furniture,  while  Viola  tried 


HER  BOOK  119 

to  find  the  china,  to  wash  it,  and  sorted  all  the  linen  and 
the  blankets.  And  at  nine  o'clock  we  dined  on  bacon  that 
Jevons  fried  over  the  gas-stove  in  the  kitchen  and  cocoa 
that  Viola  and  I  made  in  a  white-and-pink  jug  we  found 
in  the  bath ;  it  was  a  buxom,  wide-pouting  jug  with  an  ex- 
pression that  Jevons  said  reminded  him  of  his  mother's 
sister  who  had  brought  him  up.  He  said  that  jug  was  all 
that  Viola  would  be  allowed  to  see  of  his  relations. 

I  was  left  with  Viola  in  the  kitchen  to  wash  up  while 
Jevons  finished  what  he  called  his  man's  job  upstairs. 

She  took  advantage  of  his  absence  to  implore  me  to  go 
down  to  Canterbury  and  make  it  right  for  her  with  her 
people.  She  said  they'd  believe  anything  I  told  them  and 
there  wasn't  anything  they  wouldn't  do  for  me. 

"Tell  them,"  she  said,  "that  Jimmy's  going  to  be  so 
horribly  celebrated  that  they'll  look  perfect  asses  if  they 
don't  acknowledge  him." 

I  owned  there  was  something  in  it.  She  said  there  was 
everything  in  it.  And  I  promised  her  I'd  go  and  do  what 
I  could. 

Then  I  went  upstairs  to  help  Jevons  to  finish  his  man's 
job.  I  found  him  in  the  bedroom,  making  up  a  bed  on  the 
floor.  The  carpenter  had  taken  away  the  bedstead  and  the 
posts  and  left  him  nothing  but  the  mattress  and  the  tester 
with  its  roof  of  rosebud  chintz.  He  had  propped  the  tester 
up  against  the  wall  where  he  said  he  could  see  it  last  thing 
before  he  went  to  sleep  and  first  thing  when  he  woke  up. 

The  room  was  very  hot,  for  he'd  lit  the  gas  fire  to  air 
the  sheets  and  things.  He  had  thought  of  everything.  He 
had  even  thought  of  hanging  Viola's  nightgown  over  the 
back  of  a  chair  before  the  fire,  and  setting  her  slippers 
ready  for  her  feet.  He  had  laid  her  brush  and  comb  on 
the  little  rosewood  chest  of  drawers  with  brass  handles,  in 
the  recess.  He  had  unpacked  her  little  trunk  and  put  her 


120  THE  BELFRY 

things  away  all  folded  in  the  big  rosewood  chest  of  drawers 
with  brass  handles.  He  had  hung  the  rosebud  chintz  cur- 
tains at  the  window  and  fitted  its  rosebud  chintz  cover  on 
the  low  chair  by  the  fire.  And  now  he  was  kneeling  on 
the  floor,  tucking  in  the  blankets  and  smoothing  the  pillow 
for  her  head.  His  mouth  was  just  a  little  open.  And  he 
was  smiling. 

You  couldn't  hate  him. 

He  said  he'd  come  and  see  me  off  at  the  Tube  Station. 
But  he  didn't  start.  He  began  walking  about,  opening 
drawers  and  looking  at  things. 

Presently  he  gave  a  cry  of  joy.  He  had  found  what 
he  was  looking  for,  a  rosebud  chintz  coverlet.  He  spread 
it  on  the  bed  and  said,  "There !"  He  brought  in  an  old 
Persian  rug  (small  but  very  beautiful)  from  the  landing 
and  spread  it  on  the  floor  by  the  mattress  and  said,  "That's 
a  bit  of  all  right."  And  he  told  me  he  was  going  to  bees- 
wax the  floor  to-morrow.  There  was  nothing  to  beat  oak- 
stain  and  beeswax  for  a  floor. 

He  stood  there  gazing.  He  was  so  pleased  with  his  work 
that  he  couldn't  tear  himself  away. 

He  said,  "The  joke  is  that  she  thinks  she's  going  to  find 
this  room  looking  like  a  Jew  pawnbroker's  shop  when  she 
turns  in,  and  that  she'll  have  the  time  of  her  life  putting 
it  straight  for  me." 

Then  he  took  my  arm  and  led  me  away,  shutting  the 
door  carefully,  so  that  nothing,  he  said,  should  break  the 
shock  of  her  surprise. 

But  there  was  one  drop  of  bitterness  in  his  cup — "If 
only  I  could  have  set  up  that  tester !" 

I  said  he'd  had  quite  enough  excitement  for  one  day 
and  that  he  really  must  leave  something  for  to-morrow. 

On  our  way  to  the  Tube  Station  I  told  him  that  I  was 
going  down  to  Canterbury  in  a  day  or  two.  I  told  him 


HER  BOOK  121 

what  I  was  going  for.  He  had  been  so  happy  thinking 
about  his  house  and  his  furniture  and  Viola  that  I  don't 
believe  he'd  ever  thought  about  the  Thesigers.  At  the 
word  "Canterbury"  he  thrust  out  his  lower  jaw  so  that 
the  tips  of  his  little  white  teeth  were  covered  (they  always 
disappeared  when  he  was  angry). 

He  said:  "Tell  that  old  sinner  I  don't  care  a  copper 
damn  whether  he  recognizes  me  or  not.  What  I  can't  stand 
and  won't  stand  is  the  slur  he's  putting  on  my  wife." 

And  that  is  more  or  less  what  I  did  tell  him. 

I  wired  to  the  Canon  to  let  him  know  I  was  coming,  and 
he  replied  by  asking  me  to  stay  for  the  week-end. 

I  found  the  family  diminished.  Mildred  had  gone  to  a 
case;  Millicent  was  away  for  her  Midsummer  holiday; 
only  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  and  Norah  and  Victoria 
were  left.  They  had  the  air  of  survivors  of  an  appalling 
disaster.  The  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  were  aged  by 
about  ten  years ;  poor  Victoria  looked  tired  and  haggard ; 
even  Norah  was  depressed.  You  felt  that  the  trouble  in 
the  house  was  irreparable  this  time.  They  had  held  their 
heads  up  against  the  scandal  that  was  supposed  to  have 
occurred  in  Belgium;  they  couldn't  realize  it;  it  was  the 
sort  of  thing  that  occurred  to  other  people,  not  to  them. 
And,  after  all,  they  didn't  know  that  it  had  occurred.  But 
the  scandal  of  a  mesalliance  which  really  had  occurred  in 
England  three  weeks  ago  was  well  within  their  range,  and 
it  had  crushed  them.  It  wasn't,  as  Jevons  cynically  main- 
tained, that  they  objected  to  a  mesalliance — any  mesalli- 
ance— more  than  to  the  other  thing ;  I  think  they  had  never 
really  believed  in  the  other  thing,  and  this  marriage,  so 
far  from  effacing  it,  had  rubbed  it  in,  had  made  it  appear 
publicly  as  if,  after  all,  it  might  have  been  so.  It  was  not 


122  THE  BELFRY 

only  excessively  disagreeable  to  them  in  itself,  but  it  left 
them  in  that  ghastly  doubt. 

And  this  time  they  couldn't  look  to  me  to  save  them. 

Still  it  was  evident  that  they  looked  to  me  for  something. 
I  was  tackled  by  each  one  of  them  in  turn.  The  Canon 
wanted  to  know  if  I  had  anything  to  tell  him.  Mrs. 
Thesiger  wondered  whether  Viola  would  have  enough  to 
live  on.  Victoria,  in  the  absence  of  her  parents,  took  me 
into  a  corner  to  inquire  under  her  breath,  "Is  he  really 
very  awful  ?"  Norah — she  had  known  all  about  it ;  they 
hadn't  spared  her,  they  hadn't  kept  it  from  her;  you 
couldn't  keep  anything  from  Norah ;  she  had  got  it  all  out 
of  Viola  the  day  before  I  came  down  the  first  time — 
Norah  told  me  I'd  have  to  make  her  father  ask  them 
down.  She  took  Jevons's  view  that  it  was  the  Canon  who 
was  causing  all  the  scandal  now  (only  she  called  it  fuss). 
There  never  would  have  been  any  if  Mummy  and  Daddy 
had  had  the  sense  to  take  it  properly  and  treat  it  as  a  joke. 
Nobody  who  knew  Viola  could  take  it  as  anything  else. 

"But,"  she  said,  "if  Daddy  goes  about  pulling  a  long 
face  and  keeping  up  his  sore  throat  over  it,  everybody'll 
think  there  must  be  something  in  it.  I  could  have  got  it 
all  right  for  them  in  a  jiffy  if  they'd  left  it  to  me." 

"What  would  you  have  done,  then  ?"  I  was  really  anx- 
ious to  know. 

"Oh,  I'd  have  run  round  telling  everybody  about  it — as 
a  joke.  A  thundering  good  joke.  If  they'd  turned  me  on 
to  it  in  time  I  could  have  easily  overtaken  those  shock- 
ing old  cats  who  got  in  first.  As  it  is,"  she  said,  "I've 
stopped  a  lot  of  it — though  Daddy  doesn't  know  it — just 
that  way.  You  should  have  seen  me  with  the  Colonel  and 
the  Dean!  But  if  somebody  doesn't  stop  Daddy  he'll  go 
and  mess  it  all  up  again.  Don't  you  remember  how  he 
dished  my  game  at  dinner  the  first  night  you  were  here  ?" 


HER  BOOK  123 

Yes.  I  remembered.  It  came  back  to  me,  that  startling 
indiscretion  at  the  dinner-table  which  was,  after  all,  so 
deliciously  discreet.  Knowing  Norah  as  I  know  her  now, 
I  wouldn't  mind  betting  that  Jevons  owes  his  position  in 
Canterbury  (and  he  has  one)  to-day  far  more  to  his  young- 
est sister-in-law's  mancBuvres  with  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
than  to  my  handling  of  his  case — No ;  I'm  forgetting  what 
he  does  owe  that  to.  Let's  say,  then,  his  position  in  Can- 
terbury yesterday — a  year  ago. 

Well,  I  had  an  hour's  talk  with  the  Canon. 

There  was  some  awkwardness  in  having  to  point  out 
to  a  man  of  his  beauty  and  dignity  that  his  duty  lay  in 
any  other  direction  than  the  one  he  was  so  plainly  head- 
ing for.  I  put  it  on  the  grounds  of  pity.  I  pleaded  for 
Viola,  I  said  she  was  unhappy. 

He  replied  that  that  was  not  the  account  she  had  given 
of  herself. 

I  said,  Perhaps  not.  But  if  she  wasn't  unhappy  now 
she  very  soon  would  be  if  he  persisted  in  refusing  to 
acknowledge  them. 

But  his  lip  went  stiffer  and  stiffer.  He  was  too  unhappy 
himself  to  be  got  at  that  way.  So  I  took  him  on  the 
ground  of  expediency.  I  said  after  all  Jevons  was  his 
son-in-law.  He  couldn't  go  on  ignoring  Jevons.  I  used 
Viola's  argument.  He  wasn't  dealing  with  an  ordinary 
man.  In  a  few  years'  time  Tasker  Jevons  would  be  so 
celebrated  that  it  would  be  absurd  to  pretend  to  ignore 
him. 

The  Canon  stuck  to  it  that  he  didn't  care  how  celebrated 
the  fellow  was. 

I  said,  "You  can't  keep  it  up  for  ever.  You'll  have  to 
recognize  him  in  the  end.  You  don't  want  to  cut  the 
poor  chap  while  he's  struggling  and  accept  him  when  he 
rolls,  as  he  probably  will  roll." 


124  THE  BELFRY 

The  Canon  said  he  wasn't  going  to  accept  him  at  all. 
He  said  that  Jevons  rolling  would  be  if  anything  more 
odious  than  Jevons  as  he  was.  He  couldn't  forget  what 
had  happened.  And  that  was  the  end  of  it. 

I  told  him  that  it  hadn't  happened ;  but  that  to  repudiate 
Jevons  was  the  way  to  make  everybody  think  it  had.  And 
whether  it  had  happened  or  not,  he  must  surely  want  other 
people  to  forget  it.  And  once  start  the  abominable  im- 
pression, Jevons's  celebrity  would  cause  it  to  be  remem- 
bered for  ever,  or  at  any  rate  for  this  generation.  Whereas 
he  could  put  a  stop  to  the  whole  thing  at  once  by  behaving 
as  if  nothing  had  happened.  He  had  only  got  to  ask  them 
down  next  week. 

"Does  he  want  to  be  asked  down  ?" 

I  said,  No,  he  didn't.  I  told  him  what  Jevons  had  said 
— that  he  didn't  care  whether  he  was  recognized  or  not,  but 
that  he  "couldn't  stand  the  slur  that  was  being  put  upon 
his  wife." 

I  saw  him  wince  at  that. 

"That's  how  it  strikes  him  ?"  he  said. 

I  answered  that  that  was  how  it  would  strike  most  peo- 
ple. 

"I'm  putting  the  slur  on  my  daughter,  am  I  ?" 

I  was  pitiless.  I  said,  Certainly  he  was.  If  he  per- 
sisted. 

Then,  after  telling  me  that  I  had  hit  him  hard,  he  fell 
back  on  another  line  of  defence.  He  owed  it  to  his  priest- 
hood not  to  condone  his  daughter's  conduct. 

"All  the  more — all  the  more,  Furnival,  if  she  is  my 
daughter." 

I  said  he  owed  it  to  his  priesthood  to  stand  up  for  an 
innocent  girl,  even  if  she  was  his  daughter.  I  couldn't 
see  anything  in  it  but  her  innocence — her  amazing  inno- 
cence. I  only  wished  I  had  his  chance  of  proving  it. 


HER  BOOK  125 

He  shook  his  head.  "That's  it,  my  dear  fellow.  We 
can't  prove  it." 

I  said  at  least  we  could  believe  in  it  and  act  on  our 
belief. 

He  said  it  was  all  very  well  for  me.    I  was  prejudiced. 

"My  sort  of  prejudice,"  I  said,  "might  work  the  other 
way." 

"You  must  have  been  afraid,  or  you  wouldn't  have  gone 
out  to  bring  her  back." 

"Jevons  was  afraid  himself,  for  that  matter.  When 
things  got  dangerous  he  took  her  back  to  Bruges  and  put 
her  in  a  pension  to  be  safe  from  him." 

He  looked  up  sharply. 

"She  never  told  me  that — that  he  took  her  there  to  be 
safe  from  him." 

"I  don't  suppose  she  knew.  She  was  as  innocent  as  all 
that." 

"And  how  do  you  know?" 

"Because  he  told  me  so." 

I  gave  him  something  of  what  Jevons  had  told  me,  but 
not  all. 

"That,"  said  the  Canon,  "seems  to  make  him  more 
credible." 

I  pictured  for  him  the  night  of  Jevons's  remorse. 

He  said,  "That's  the  best  thing  I've  heard  about  him 
yet.  You  believe  him  ?" 

I  said,  "Yes.  The  man  is  extremely  sensitive  and 
almost  insanely  frank." 

I  let  it  sink  in.  Presently  he  owned  that  it  was  the 
platonic  version  of  the  affair  that — as  a  man  of  the  world 
— he  had  found  it  so  hard  to  swallow — "All  that  nonsense, 
you  know,  about  the  Belfry." 

He  meditated  a  while.  Then  he  began  to  ask  ques- 
tions : 


126  THE  BELFRY 

"Where  does  he  come  from  ?  Who  are  his  people  ? 
What  do  they  do?" 

I  said  his  father  was  a  Registrar  of  Births,  Marriages 
and  Deaths  in  a  village  somewhere  in  Hertfordshire. 

And  then :    "Is  he — is  he  very  impossible  ?" 

I  said,  No.  Only  from  their  point  of  view  a  little  im« 
probable. 

He  didn't  press  it. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "it  looks  as  if  he  was  inevitable.  I 
suppose  we've  got  to  make  the  best  of  him.  What  do  you 
want  me  to  do?" 

I  said  I  wanted  him  to  ask  them  down.    Very  soon. 

He  said,  "All  right,  Furnival.  I'll  ask  them  down  next 
week.  But  if  I  do  you  must  stop  on  and  see  me  through. 
I  won't  be  left  alone  with  him." 

I  stopped  on,  playing  chess  with  the  Canon  and  lawn 
tennis  with  ISTorah,  who  was  more  than  ever  determined  to 
beat  me. 

And  on  Tuesday  of  the  next  week  they  came  down. 

The  whitewashing  of  Jevons  had  not  been  an  easy  mat- 
ter. It  took  such  a  lot  of  coats  to  make  a  satisfactory  job 
of  him.  And  it  was  not  a  job  I  would  have  chosen.  But  I 
was  serving  Mrs.  Jevons,  and  if  my  service  had  demanded 
miracles  I  should  have  had  to  have  worked  them  some- 
where, that  was  all.  And  perhaps  it  was  a  miracle  to 
have  turned  Jevons  out  as  a  morally  presentable  person 
according  to  the  requirements  of  a  Cathedral  Close. 

But  up  to  that  Tuesday  afternoon  in  August  my  private 
grievance  against  Jevons  remained  what  it  had  been.  In 
his  absence — even  while  I  whitewashed  him — I  could  not 
extend  a  Christian  forgiveness  and  forbearance  to  Jevons, 
any  more  than  Mrs.  Thesiger  could.  I  think  I  hated 
Jevons.  I  ought  to  have  hated  him — by  every  glorious 


HER  BOOK  127 

and  manly  code,  pagan  or  barbarous,  I  ought  to  have  hated 
him.  And  I  did — every  minute  that  he  wasn't  there.  He 
had  made  me  a  figure  of  preposterous  suffering.  Because 
of  him  I  trailed  a  fatuous  tragedy  through  the  Thesigers' 
house  and  over  the  green  lawns  of  the  Close,  under  the 
eyes  of  the  young  subalterns  and  of  Victoria  and  Norah. 
(Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  I  didn't  mind  so  much.)  It 
mattered  nothing  that  they  were  all  extremely  kind  to  me, 
since  my  suffering  was  responsible  for  their  kindness  and 
Jevons  was  responsible  for  my  suffering. 

Well,  on  that  Tuesday  he  arrived.  He  was  asked  for 
a  week  and  he  stayed  three  days ;  and  in  those  three  days 
I  had  forgiven  him  everything  for  the  sake  of  his  perform- 
ance. 

He  arrived  in  the  middle  of  a  tennis-party. 

The  Thesigers  hadn't  meant  to  have  a  party.  The 
subalterns  must  have  known  that  he  was  coming  and 
turned  up  simply  to  look  at  him.  (I  wondered  afterwards 
whether  Norah  could  have  told  them.  She  was  danger- 
ously demure  that  afternoon.) 

I  ought  to  have  said  that  for  the  last  two  days  the  Canon 
had  been  preparing  himself  for  Jevons  by  reading  him. 
He  had  ordered — in  defiance  of  his  political  principles — 
the  Morning  Standard,  and  I  had  found  him  reading 
Jevons's  novel  and  surrounded  by  numbers  of  the  Blue 
Review,  which,  if  you  remember,  published  the  best  of 
Jevons's  earlier  work.  He-  had  no  difficulty  in  getting  hold 
of  them;  his  youngest  daughter  had  been  able  to  supply 
him  with  more  Jevons  than  he  wanted.  In  fact,  in  the 
study  of  Tasker  Jevons  the  Canon  was  weeks  behind  the 
rest  of  his  acquaintance.  There  was  hardly  a  family  in 
Canterbury  of  any  education  in  which  Tasker  Jevons  was 
not  by  this  time  a  household  word.  The  garrison  club 
library  had  bought  him  in  quantities.  The  bookseller  in 


128  THE  BELFRY 

the  precincts  did  not  stock  him  (he  was  not  allowed  to)  ; 
but  he  could  order  him  for  you,  and  did.  And  the  book- 
sellers in  the  High  Street  displayed  him  in  their  windows 
by  the  half-dozen. 

I  have  forgotten,  in  the  blaze  of  his  later  fame,  that 
(apart  from  this  purely  local  reputation)  he  passed  in  the 
provinces  as  a  fair-sized  celebrity  even  then.  Only,  as 
Jevons  judged  himself  at  every  stage  with  accuracy,  he 
hadn't  begun  to  take  himself  at  all  seriously  yet. 

So  he  arrived  in  a  perfect  simplicity,  without  any  of 
that  rather  dubious  aplomb  with  which  he  tried  to  carry 
off  his  celebrity  when  it  really  came. 

It  was  very  nasty  for  him. 

He  had  to  come  out  of  the  house,  following  Viola  and 
her  mother  all  the  way  to  the  far  end  of  the  lawn,  where 
the  Canon  was  ready  for  him  with  a  face  which,  try  as 
he  would — and  he  tried  his  hardest — he  could  not  un- 
stiffen.  It  must  be  said  of  the  Canon  that  he  nothing 
common  did  or  mean  upon  that  memorable  scene;  but  he 
had — as  Jevons  said  afterwards — rather  too  much  the  air 
of  walking  up  to  the  gun's  mouth  and  calling  on  us  to  ob- 
serve how  beautifully  a  Christian  could  die. 

And  there  was  Victoria  standing  beside  the  Canon  and 
holding  herself  well,  and  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Braithwaite 
beside  Victoria,  trying  to  look  as  if  there  was  nothing 
unusual  about  Jevons  or  the  situation.  There  was  Norah 
at  the  tennis-net  quivering  with  excitement,  and  (by  the 
time  Jevons  had  caught  up  with  his  convoy)  there  was 
Mrs.  Thesiger  alongside  the  others,  turned  round  to  pre- 
sent him,  and  watching  him  as  he  came  on.  Viola  had 
turned  and  was  looking  at  him  too.  And  there  were  the 
subalterns  at  the  tennis-net  with  Norah,  doing  unnecessary 
things  to  the  net  and  trying  not  to  look  at  him. 


HER  BOOK  129 

I  wondered :  How  on  earth  will  he  carry  it  off  ?  How  is 
he  going  to  get  across  that  tennis-ground  ? 

He  was  getting  across  it  somehow,  holding  himself  not 
quite  so  well  as  Victoria  or  the  subalterns,  but  still  holding 
himself,  coming  on,  a  little  flushed  and  twinkling  and  self- 
conscious,  but  coming. 

The  situation  was,  for  him,  most  horrible;  but  it  was 
worse  for  Viola.  I  wondered :  Is  she  shivering  all  down 
her  spine?  Is  she  going  to  flinch?  Why  will  she  look 
at  the  poor  chap  ? 

And  then  I  saw.  She  was  looking  at  him  with  a  little 
tender  smile,  a  smile  that  helped  him  across,  that  said: 
"Come  on.  Come  on.  It's  difficult,  I  know,  but  you're 
doing  it  beautifully." 

Well,  so  he  was.  He  was  doing  it  more  beautifully  than 
the  Canon  or  any  of  them.  For  that  group  on  the  lawn 
were  like  a  rather  eager  rescue  party,  holding  out  hands 
to  a  struggling  swimmer  in  the  social  surf.  They  expected 
him  to  struggle  and  he  didn't.  He  landed  himself  in  the 
middle  of  them  with  an  adroitness  that  put  them  in  the 
wrong.  What's  more,  he  held  his  own  when  he  got  there. 
He  looked  about  as  different  from  any  of  the  men  on  that 
tennis-ground  as  a  man  well  could  look.  He  looked  odd; 
and  that  saved  him.  They  with  their  distinction  had  not 
achieved  absolute  difference  from  each  other.  His  differ- 
ence from  all  of  them  was  so  absolute  that  it  was  a  sort  of 
distinction  in  itself. 

As  soon  as  he  got  there  Norah  came  up  with  the  subal- 
terns in  tow.  She  made  a  little  friendly  rush  at  him.  She 
said,  "I'm  Norah,  the  youngest.  I  expect  Viola's  told  you 
about  me.  She's  told  me  lots  about  you" 

She  meant  well,  dear  child.  But  she  overdid  it»  She 
hadn't  allowed — none  of  us  except  Viola  had  allowed — 
for  his  appalling  sensitiveness.  The  poor  chap  told  me 


130  THE  BELFRY 

afterwards. that  he  could  bear  up  against  the  Canon's  stiff 
face  and  what  he  called  Mrs.  Thesiger's  ladylike  refine- 
ments of  repudiation,  and  the  poker  that  Victoria  had 
swallowed,  but  that  that  kid's  kindness,  coming  on  the 
top  of  it  all,  floored  him.  He  took  her  hand  (I  think  he 
squeezed  it) ,  and  his  mouth  opened,  but  he  couldn't  speak ; 
he  just  breathed  hard  and  flushed  furiously ;  and  his  eyes 
looked  as  if  he  were  going  to  cry.  But  of  course  he  didn't 
cry.  He  was,  he  said,  far  too  much  afraid  of  the  subal- 
terns. 

It  was  a  good  thing,  perhaps,  after  all,  that  it  took  him 
that  way.  His  emotion  made  him  quiet  and  subdued ;  it 
toned  him  down,  so  that  he  started  well  from  the  very  be- 
ginning. 

After  tea  he  recovered  and  talked  to  the  Colonel  and 
the  subalterns  while  the  rest  of  us  listened.  He  said,  I 
remember,  that  the  building  of  Dreadnoughts  was  of  more 
importance  to  the  country  than  Disestablishment.  And 
even  more  important  than  the  building  of  Dreadnoughts 
was  the  building  of  submarines.  The  submarine  was  the 
ship  of  the  future.  There  should  be,  he  said,  at  least  fifty 
submarines  for  every  Dreadnought  turned  out. 

That  made  them  all  sit  up.  (It  was  not  a  platitude  in 
nineteen-six,  but  a  prophecy.)  The  Colonel  and  the  subal- 
terns hung  on  his  words;  and  when  the  Canon  saw  them 
hanging,  his  mouth  began  to  relax  a  little  of  its  own  ac- 
cord. In  his  first  hour  Jevons  had  scored,  notably. 

It  was  as  if  he  had  said  to  himself,  "I'll  bring  these 
people  round,  see  if  I  don't.  I  give  myself  an  hour." 

Dinner  passed  without  any  misadventure,  but  you  could 
see  that  he  was  careful.  Also  you  could  see  by  his  twinkle 
that  he  was  amusing  himself  by  his  own  precautions,  as  if, 
again,  he  had  said  to  himself,  "They're  all  expecting  me  to 


HER  BOOK  131 

make  noises  over  my  soup,  and  they'll  be  disappointed.  I 
just  won't  make  any." 

We  had  coffee  in  the  garden  afterwards.  And  it  was 
then  that  the  Canon  asked  him  what  his  politics  were  ? 

Jevons  said  he  had  no  politics.  Or  rather,  he  had  a 
great  many  politics.  He  was  a  sort  of  Socialist  in  time 
of  peace  and  a  red-hot  Imperialist  in  time  of  war,  and  a 
Tory  for  purposes  of  Tariff  Reform,  and  a  Liberal  when  it 
came  to  Home  Rule. 

And  when  the  Canon  objected  that  you  couldn't  run  a 
Government  on  those  lines,  little  Jevons  told  him  that 
that  was  precisely  how  Governments  were  run.  It  was  a 
fallacy  to  suppose  that  Oppositions  didn't  rule. 

And  again  he  scored.  He  did  it  all  with  a  twinkling, 
dimpling  urbanity  and  deprecation,  as  if  the  Canon  had 
been  a  beautiful  lady  he  was  paying  court  to,  as  if  he 
thought  it  was  rather  a  pity  that  beauty  should  lower  itself 
to  talk  politics ;  but  since  he  insisted  on  politics,  he  should 
have  them ;  as  if,  in  short,  he  loved  the  Canon,  but  didn't 
take  him  very  seriously. 

Yes;  he  certainly  scored.  He  gave  Viola  no  cause  to 
flinch. 

That  evening  comes  back  to  me  by  bits.  It  must  have 
been  that  evening  that  the  Canon  walked  round  the  gar- 
den with  me.  I  see  him  walking  round  and  round,  with 
Norah  hanging  on  to  his  arm,  teasing  him  and  chattering. 
I  hear  her  crying  out  suddenly  with  no  relevance,  "Hasn't 
he  got  stunning  eyes,  Daddy  ?"  and  the  Canon  saying  that 
Jevons's  eyes  would  look  better  in  a  pair  of  earrings  than 
in  Jevons's  head,  and  her  answering,  "Wouldn't  I  like  to 
wear  them !"  I  see  his  little  mock  shiver  (as  if  he  felt  that 
it  was  those  great  chunks  of  unsuitable  sapphire  that  had 
charmed  Viola  across  the  Channel),  and  Norah's  funny 
face  as  she  said,  "Oh,  come,  he  isn't  half  bad." 


132  THE  BELFRY 

That  night  he  called  me  into  the  library  when  they  had 
all  gone  to  bed.  Clearly  he  wanted  to  know  how  it  had 
gone  off — how  he,  in  particular,  had  behaved.  I  assured 
him  that  his  behaviour  had  been  perfect.  And  I  asked 
him  what  he  thought  of  Jevons  ? 

He  said,  "Well — he  might" 35e  worse.  He  might  be  much, 
much  worse.  He's  a  clever  chap.  Where  does  he  get  it  all 
from?" 

But  I  noticed  that  the  next  day  he-  shut  himself  up  in 
his  library  all  morning,  was  silent  at  lunch,  and  never 
emerged  properly  till  dinner-time.  Mrs.  Thesiger  also 
fought  shy  of  her  son-in-law. 

Norah  and  Victoria  took  him  by  turns  that  day.  I 
noticed  that  he  got  on  very  well  with  Norah.  She  knocked 
balls  over  the  net  for  him  all  morning.  (He  couldn't  play, 
but  professed  a  great  eagerness  to  learn.)  In  the  after- 
noon Victoria  took  him  to  look  at  the  Cathedral  and  the 
old  quarters  of  the  town.  In  the  evening,  after  dinner, 
we  all  sat  out  in  the  garden.  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger 
soon  left  us ;  Victoria  followed  them ;  and  Viola  and  Norah 
and  Jevons  and  I  sat  on  till  long  after  dark. 

Viola  and  Norah,  I  remember,  sat  close  together  on  the 
long  seat  under  the  elm  tree.  Jevons  was  on  the  other  side 
of  Viola.  I  sat  on  a  cushion  at  her  feet. 

The  night  had  a  rhythm  in  it.  Stillness  and  peace.  The 
Cathedral  chimes.  Stillness  and  peace  again.  And  there 
was  a  smell  of  cut  lawn  grass  with  dew  on  it  from  the 
ground,  and  of  roses  from  the  borders,  and  of  lichen  and 
moss  and  crumbling  mortar  from  the  walls.  Sometimes 
these  smells  pierced  the  peace  like  sound;  and  sometimes 
>  they  gathered  close  and  wrapped  us  like  warmth. 

Then  Jevons  spoke. 

"All  this,"  he  said,  "is  very  beautiful.  Very  beauti- 
ful indeed." 


HER  BOOK  133 

And  Viola  sighed. 

"Yes.    Yes,"  she  said.    "I  suppose  it  is  beautiful." 

"You  know  it  is,"  "he  said. 

"I  know  all  right.  But  I  don't  think  I  can  see  it  as 
you  do.  I've  been  shut  up  in  it  so  long.  It's  all  this  that 
you've  taken  me  out  of." 

"It's  all  this,"  he  said,  "that's  made  you  what  you  are." 

"It  isn't.  This  isn't  really  me.  It's  just  Them.  I'm 
what  I've  made  myself.  I'm  what  you've  made  me.  I'm 
uglier  than  they  are.  I'm  uglier  than  anything  here,  but 
I'm  much,  much  more  alive." 

"You  surely  don't  suggest,"  said  Jevons,  "that  I've 
made  you  uglier  ?" 

"You've  made  me  stronger  and  cleverer  and  bigger — 
ever  so  much  bigger  than  I  was." 

"Much  better  in  every  way,"  I  said,  "than  your  youngest 
sister  here,  hasn't  he  ?" 

"Poor  little  Norah !  I  didn't  mean  that — you  beast — 
Fumy! — Of  course  I  didn't.  Jimmy — what  did  I 
mean?" 

He  said  nothing.  But  I  heard  an  inarticulate  murmur, 
and  I  saw  that  in  the  darkness  his  arm  went  round  her 
and  drew  her  closer. 

And  that,  God  f  orgiye  him,  was  his  heaviest  score  up  till 
now. 

In  two  days  he  had  absorbed  the  Canterbury  atmosphere. 
He  was  in  it.  In  it  as  I  wasn't  and  couldn't  be. 

And  the  next  day  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  took  him  in 
hand  by  turns.  The  Canon  showed  him  the  town  all  over 
again  all  mornings  And  in  the  afternoon  Mrs.  Thesiger 
showed  him  the  Cathedral  all  over  again;  and  took  him 
with  her  to  the  service.  And  all  dinner-time  Jevons  was 
very  pensive  and  subdued. 

After  dinner  the  Canon  talked  to  Jevons  about  his  novel. 


134  THE  BELFRY 

(He  had  retired  into  his  library  all  afternoon  in  order  to 
finish  it. )  He  asked  him  why  he  had  chosen  an  ugly  sub- 
ject when  he  might  have  found  a  beautiful  one  ? 

And  Jevons  was  more  pensive  than  ever.  He  said, 
"Well — that's  a  question " 

He  couldn't  tell  the  Canon  why  he'd  chosen  it.  He 
couldn't  disclose  to  him  his  plan  of  campaign. 

"You  see,  sir,  I  haven't  seen  many  beautiful  things." 

He  still  pondered.  Then  he  said,  very  slowly,  as  if  he 
dragged  it  out  of  himself  with  difficulty,  "That  book  was 
written — written  in  my  head — before  I  knew  my  wife." 

You  could  literally  see  his  score  running  up.  By  nine 
o'clock  the  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  had  roped  him  into 
their  game  of  whist. 

I  sat  out  with  Viola  and  Norah  in  the  garden,  when 
Norah  told  us  that  she  thought  Jimmy  was  a  dear.  She 
was  the  only  one  of  them  that  called  him  Jimmy. 

About  ten  o'clock  next  morning  Viola  came  to  me  and 
asked  me  to  go  up  to  Jimmy,  in  his  room.  He  wanted  to 
speak  to  me. 

I  found  him  packing,  packing  with  a  sort  of  precise  and 
concentrated  fury. 

He  was  going.  Going  up  to  town.  He  had  torn  through 
Canterbury,  eaten  his  way  through  Canterbury,  through 
the  beauty  and  peace  of  it ;  he  had  absorbed  and  assimilated 
it  in  three  days.  And  he  had  had  enough.  If  he  stayed 
in  it  another  hour  the  beauty  and  the  peace  of  it  would 
kill  him.  The  Canon's  beauty  was,  he  said,  adorable;  so 
was  Mrs.  Thesiger's. 

"But  if  I  stay  here  I  shall  ruin  it.  I  can't,"  he  said, 
"go  on  giving  that  dear  old  clergyman  clergyman's  sore 
throat.  I  frighten  him  so  that  he  can't  sing.  He  doesn't 
know  what  to  do  with  me,  or  say  to  me.  He  doesn't  know 
what  to  call  me.  He  can't  call  me  Jevons,  and  he  won't 


HER  BOOK  135 

call  me  Jimmy,  and  he  knows  it  would  be  ridiculous  to 

call  me  James.     Besides,  he  agitates  me  and  makes  me 

drop  my  aitches. 

"So  I've  had  a  wire.    You'll  explain  to  him  the  sort  of 

wire  I've  had." 

"And  Viola  ?"  I  said.    "Is  she  going  too  ?" 

"No.    Viola's  going  to  stay  till  our  week's  up.    By  that 

time  she'll  be  bored  stiff  and  longing  to  get  back  to  me." 

He  went,  and  I'm  not  at  all  sure  that  he  didn't  score  by 
going. 

And  that  night  and  the  next  and  the  next  I  thought  of 
little  Jevons  alone  in  his  little  house  in  Hampstead,  lying 
all  by  himself  in  his  four-post  bed  between  his  rosebud 
chintz  curtains  and  under  his  rosebud  chintz  tester,  and 
saying  to  himself  that  he  had  scored. 


VII 

THE  Thesigers  lived  to  be  grateful  to  me  for  reconciling 
them  to  Jevons,  if  it  was  I  who  reconciled  them.  I  don't 
think  Mrs.  Thesiger  ever  really  forgave  him,  ever  really 
liked  him  till  the  end ;  but  the  Canon  very  soon  owned  to 
a  surreptitious  regard  for  him.  Luckily  he  acquired  it 
while  Jevons  was  still  struggling,  otherwise  I  do  not  think 
I  could  have  saved  their  faces. 

In  the  first  year  of  his  marriage  Jevons  made  them  see 
how  right  I  was  when  I  told  them  it  would  be  impossible 
to  ignore  him.  In  the  second  year  they  saw  that  he  had 
only  just  given  them  time  to  come  round  before  it  was 
too  late.  The  minute  he  became  prosperous  it  would  have 
been  too  late,  much  too  late  for  their  dignity  and  beauty. 
And  yet  they  couldn't  very  well  have  gone  on  repudiating 
Viola  for  ever.  A  year  would  have  seen  them  through 
that  attitude.  And  Jevons's  great  coup  had  come  off  in 
the  year  he  "gave"  it;  so  that  if  they  had  been  left  to 
themselves  their  revulsion  of  tenderness  must  have  coin- 
cided with  his  prosperity.  They  would  have  had  every 
appearance  of  having  surrendered  to  his  income. 

And  they  would  have  missed  the  spectacle  of  his  strug- 
gle. 

I  believe  it  was  his  struggle,  the  doggedness,  the  heroism, 
the  wild  humour  that  he  put  into  it  that  brought  them 
round.  They  didn't  like  his  early  celebrity  and  they  de- 
plored the  cause  of  it — his  first  novel. 

That  book  justified  everything  that  Jevons  had  said  of 

136 


HER  BOOK  137 

it.  It  did  startle.  It  did  arrest.  It  was  unpleasant.  So 
vividly  and  powerfully  unpleasant  that  it  nailed  your 
eyes  to  it  and  kept  them  there.  It  made  a  break  and  a 
stain  in  your  memory. 

When  I  say  it  was  unpleasant  I  mean,  and  he  meant, 
not  that  it  was  unclean,  but  that  it  was  brutal.  I  shall 
have  written  this  tale  to  very  little  purpose  if  it  isn't  trans 
parent  that  Jevons's  mind,  Jevons's  whole  nature  was 
scrupulously  clean.  Even  his  brutality  was  not  spon- 
taneous. He  broke  his  neck  to  get  it.  You  could  see  him 
putting  his  tongue  out  as  he  laboured  the  brutality.  You 
could  see  him  sweating  as  he  went  over  it  again,  removing 
all  the  marks  of  labour,  making  for  his  effect  of  sincerity 
and  gorgeous  simplicity  and  ease. 

I've  said  it's  doubtful  how  far  Jevons  took  himself  seri- 
ously. He  certainly  had  no  illusions  as  to  the  nature  of 
his  success.  But  whenever  I  come  to  this  side  of  him 
I  feel  myself  untrustworthy.  I  cannot  see  him  properly. 
I  am  prejudiced  by  knowing  him  so  well.  I  daresay  if  I 
hadn't  known  him,  if  he  hadn't  been  so  frank  in  his  dis- 
closures, if  he  hadn't  explained  so  many  times  the  delib- 
erate calculations  of  his  method,  I  should  think  him  a 
great  novelist.  I  daresay  to  a  generation  that  knows  noth- 
ing about  him  or  his  disclosures  or  his  method  he  will 
seem  a  great  novelist  again.  I  daresay  he  is  a  great  novel- 
ist. I  don't  know. 

Anyhow  there  were  three  great  stages  in  his  career :  the 
Slow  Advance ;  the  Grand  Attack ;  and  Victory.  (He  had 
been  advancing  slowly  ever  since  the  day  I  met  him  on  the 
football-ground  at  Blackheath) . 

All  these  stages  are  marked  for  me  by  the  increasing 
size  and  splendour  of  the  houses  that  he  occupied  in  turn ; 
the  four-roomed  cottage  at  Hampstead;  the  little  house 
in  Edwardes  Square;  the  large  house  in  Mayfair;  the 


i38  THE  BELFRY 

still  larger  country  house  he  acquired  last  of  all.  And 
the  Jevons  I  like  to  think  of  is  the  Jevons  of  the  little 
whitewashed  cottage,  of  the  whitewashed  rooms,  the  one 
sitting-room  where  we  dined ;  the  kitchen  at  the  back  where 
we  cooked  and  washed  up;  the  absurd  little  bedroom  in 
the  front  where  the  four-post  bed  was  set  up  like  a  tent 
with  its  curtains  and  its  tester ;  the  study  at  the  back  where 
Jevons  worked  and  Nbrah  Thesiger  slept  when  she  came 
to  stay.  I  remember  Jevons  darting  from  the  kitchen  and 
the  dining-room  with  steaming  dishes  in  his  hands ;  Jevons 
with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  his  feet  on  the  chimney- 
piece,  talking,  talking,  talking  about  anything — Dread- 
noughts, submarines,  the  War  (he  had  given  it  nine  years 
now) — from  nine  till  eleven,  and  then  flinging  himself 
out  of  his  chair  to  turn  the  settee  into  a  bed  for  the  Kiddy. 
Whatever  he  was  saying  or  doing,  in  the  middle  of  a  cal- 
culation, he  would  break  off  at  eleven  and  drag  sheets  and 
blankets  out  of  a  coffin-like  box  under  the  settee  and  make 
up  the  Kiddy's  little  bed  for  her,  because  Kiddies  must 
on  no  account  be  allowed  to  sit  up  late  at  night.  I  remem- 
ber Viola  and  Koran  coming  in  to  help  and  Jevons  shooing 
them  away.  And  Norah  would  come  back  again  and  put 
her  head  round  the  door  and  look  at  him  where  he  knelt 
on  the  floor  absurdly,  tucking  in  blankets  and  breathing 
hard  as  he  tucked.  And  she  would  say,  "Look  at  him. 
Isn't  he  sweet?"  as  if  Jevons  had  been  a  rabbit  or  a 
guinea-pig,  and  go  away  again. 

Somehow  I  always  see  him  like  that,  making  beds,  stoop- 
ing over  something,  doing  something  for  one  of  them  or 
for  me. 

Sometimes  they  would  burst  in  on  him  suddenly  in  his 
bedmaking  and  throw  pillows  at  him,  or  it  might  be 
sponges,  and  there  would  be  madness:  two  girls  running 
amok  and  little  Jevons  flying  before  them  through  the 


HER  BOOK  139 

house  and  squealing  in  his  excitement.  Once  he  went  out 
to  post  a  letter  in  the  Grove  before  midnight  and  they 
locked  him  out  and  looked  at  him  from  the  window  of  the 
front  bedroom  and  defied  him  to  enter,  and  he  skipped 
round  to  the  back  and  climbed  up  by  the  water-butt  on  to 
the  drainpipe  of  the  bathroom,  and  from  the  drainpipe, 
perilously,  in  through  the  window  of  his  study,  where  they 
found  him  putting  hair-brushes  in  Norah's  bed. 

After  the  drainpipe  adventure  (when  they  saw  how 
game  he  was)  they  sobered  down.  I  think  it  was  that 
night  that  Norah  said,  "We  mustn't  kill  Jimmy.  That 
would  never  do." 

And  there  would  be  theatre-parties  when  Jimmy  had 
tickets  given  him,  and  eighteenpenny  dinners  at  the  "Petit 
Riche,"  going  and  returning  by  the  Hampstead  Tube. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Norah  must  have  stayed  a  great  deal 
with  them  at  Hampstead,  and  yet  she  couldn't  have ;  they 
were  only  two  years  in  the  little  four-roomed  house.  Any- 
how, we  were  all  immensely  happy  in  those  two  years; 
even  I  was  happy.  Jevons  I  know  was — and  Viola.  Viola 
had  never  been  so  happy  in  her  life.  She  cooked:  she 
washed  up  with  Jimmy  to  help  her ;  she  mended  his  clothes 
and  made  her  own ;  she  did  his  typewriting ;  she  took  down 
his  articles  in  shorthand  and  typed  them ;  and  through  all 
his  funny  little  social  lapses  she  adored  him. 

When  you  think  of  it,  poverty  and  close  quarters  for  two 
years,  and  the  menace  of  some  of  those  lapses  hanging 
over  her  all  the  time — it  was  a  pretty  severe  test.  You 
would  have  said  that  if  she  could  stand  that  she  could 
stand  anything,  and  she  certainly  stood  it. 

But  Jimmy  hadn't  begun  yet  to  unbend.  He  was  still 
on  the  defensive,  holding  himself  in,  every  nerve  strung 
up  to  the  Grand  Attack.  This  tension  affected  his  be- 
haviour. He  knew  his  danger.  He  knew  there  were  cer- 


I4o  THE  BELFRY 

tain  gestures  that  he  must  restrain,  and  he  restrained 
them;  there  were  certain  things  he  did  with  spoons  and 
forks  and  tahle  napkins  that  would  wreck  him  if  he  were 
caught  doing  them,  and  in  those  two  years  he  kept  a  very 
sharp  look-out.  You  would  have  thought  that  this  life, 
on  the  edge  of  an  abyss,  with  full  knowledge  of  his  dan- 
ger, would  have  made  him  nervous  and  produced  the  very 
disaster  that  he  dreaded.  But  no.  Jevons  was  a  fighting 
man,  and  he  rose  to  these  crises  and  prevailed.  You  felt 
that  for  him  the  real  test  would  come  when  he  was  pros- 
perous, when  the  strain  was  taken  off  him  and  he  let  him- 
self go. 

Meanwhile  it  was  terrifying  to  see  him  balancing  him- 
self on  the  edge. 

They  moved  into  the  Edwardes  Square  house  in  the 
September  quarter  of  nineteen-eight.  This  was  the  year 
of  the  weeks  of  consolidation,  his  second  novel  and  his 
"Journal,"  that  were  to  precede  the  Grand  Attack.  The 
novel  did  exactly  what  he  said  it  would.  It  did  counteract 
the  effect  of  its  predecessor;  and  the  "Journal"  gave  him 
a  place  in  Belles-Lettres  where  he  was  safe  from  the  legend 
of  his  own  brutality. 

But  it  strained  his  relations  with  the  Thesigers  for  the 
time  being.  The  Rosalind  of  the  "Journal"  is  so  obviously 
Viola,  and  though  he  is  careful  to  refer  to  her  as  his  wife, 
the  book  reminded  people  that  they  were  said  to  have 
travelled  together  before  they  were  married.  Her  figure 
moves  through  the  grey  Flemish  cities  and  the  grey  Flem- 
ish landscape  with  an  adorable  innocence  and  naivete,  a 
trifle  slenderer  and  tenderer  than  the  Viola  I  remember, 
who  always  had  for  me  an  air  of  energy  and  obstinacy  and 
defiance,  but  for  Jevons,  perhaps,  not  more  slender  or  more 
tender  than  the  Viola  he  knew.  You  couldn't  say  she 


HER  BOOK  141 

wasn't  charming.  The  Canon  couldn't  say  it ;  what  he  did 
say  was  that  Jevons  should  have  kept  her  out  of  it. 
Jevons's  defence  was  that  if  he  had  kept  her  out  of  it.  there 
wouldn't  have  been  any  book. 

But  he  never  did  it  again.  Having  once  for  all  drawn 
her  portrait  as  a  young  girl,  he  left  it,  as  if  he  would  have 
kept  her  youth  immortal.  You  will  not  find  any  woman 
of  his  novels  who  suggests  even  a  fugitive  likeness  to  the 
Viola  he  married. 

The  house  in  Edwardes  Square  stands  for  the  second 
period:  the  period  of  sober  energy  that  led  up  to  the 
Grand  Attack.  It  was  also  the  period  of  deliberate  yet 
vehement  refinement.  Jevons  was  determined  at  all  cost 
to  be  refined.  And  at  considerable  cost,  with  white-painted 
panelling  throughout,  with  blue-and-white  Chinese  vases 
here  and  there,  and  more  and  more  Bokhara  rugs  every- 
where, and  tussore  silk  curtains  in  the  windows  and  every 
stick  of  furniture  chosen  for  its  premeditated  chastity,  the 
little  brown  house  was  made  to  serve  him  as  a  holy  stand- 
ard. He  said  he  had  only  got  to  live  up  to  it  and  he  would 
be  all  right. 

And  so,  in  the  quest  of  purging  and  salvation  through 
the  beauty  of  his  surroundings,  he  had  made  his  place 
perfect  inside  and  out,  from  the  diminutive  flagged  court 
in  the  front  (with  one  brilliant  mat  of  flowers  laid  down 
in  the  middle)  to  the  last  lovely  border  of  the  grass-garden 
at  the  back.  I  wondered,  I  have  never  ceased  to  wonder, 
knowing  his  beginnings,  how  he  did  it  so  well.  Of  course 
he  gave  Viola  a  free  hand,  he  let  her  have  what  she  wanted ; 
but  when  I  complimented  her  on  any  result  she  let  me 
know  at  once  that  it  was  Jimmy's  doing.  She  was  pa- 
thetically anxious  that  I  should  see  that  he  knew  how. 
She  let  me  know,  too,  the  secret  of  his  passionate  absorp- 


142  THE  BELFRY 

tion  in  gardens  and  interiors,  lest  I  should  think  it  argued 
any  unmanliness  in  him. 

I  remember  so  well  her  showing  me  that  house  in  Ed- 
wardes  Square.  I  had  called  one  afternoon  when  I  had 
known  that  Jevons  wasn't  there.  I  had  left  him  at  his 
club  in  Dover  Street.  (He  had  a  club  in  Dover  Street 
now;  it  was  my  club;  I  had  put  him  up  for  it.  He  en- 
joyed his  club  as  he  enjoyed  everything  else  that  he  had 
acquired  by  conquest;  his  membership  marked  another 
step  in  his  advance,  another  strip  of  alien  territory  gained. 
And  he  had  chosen  this  club,  he  said,  because  most  of  the 
members  had  retired,  to  cultivate  adipose  tissue  on  pen- 
sions, and  they  made  him  feel  adolescent  and  slender  and 
energetic.)  I  had  left  him  in  the  library  writing  letters 
(he  said  he  found  a  voluptuous  pleasure  in  writing  letters 
on  the  club  paper  under  that  irreproachable  address),  and 
I  rushed  off  in  a  taxi  to  Viola  in  Edwardes  Square. 

She  was  very  glad  to  see  me,  and  she  gave  me  tea, 
poured  out  of  an  early  eighteenth-century  silver  teapot,  in 
beautiful  old  blue-and-white  Chinese  teacups.  She  wore 
one  of  those  absurd  narrow  coats  with  tails  that  made 
women  look  like  long,  slender  birds  that  year,  and  she  had 
done  something  unexpected  with  her  hair;  it  was  curls, 
curls,  curls  all  over,  the  way  they  did  it  then,  and  she 
sat  on  a  wine-coloured  sofa  with  a  wine-coloured  rug  at 
her  feet. 

She  began  straight  away  by  talking  about  Jimmy's  last 
book,  the  "Journal." 

"Don't  you  see  now"  she  said,  "why  I  went  out  to  him, 
and  how  beautiful  it  all  was  ?" 

I  asked  her  did  she  think  I'd  ever  doubted  ?  She  said : 
"No.  But  Daddy  hates  the  book.  So  does  Mummy.  They 
all  hate  it  except  Norah  and  me.  I'm  glad  he  wrote  it- 


HER  BOOK  143 

I'm  glad  he  put  me  into  it.  I  never  knew  I  was  so  nice, 
did  you  ?" 

"Oh,  come,"  I  said,  "surely  I  always  knew  ?" 

But  she  didn't  pay  any  attention  to  me.  She  didn't  care 
to  know  what  I  thought  or  what  I  knew.  She  wasn't  think- 
ing of  me  or  of  herself.  She  was  defending  Jimmy  with 
little  jerky,  stabbing  thrusts  of  defiance.  You  could  see 
that  the  smallest  criticism  of  him  made  her  suffer;  that 
she  was  capable  of  infinite  suffering  where  Jimmy  was 
concerned.  Also  you  saw  that  she  would  have  to  suffer, 
and  that  she  knew  it,  and  that  it  was  this  suffering  that 
she  repulsed  and  thrust  from  her  with  her  stabs.  He  was 
making  a  tender  place  in  her  mind  that  might  some  day 
become  a  wound. 

"You  know  I  did,"  I  insisted — I  think,  to  turn  her  mind 
from  him. 

She  looked  at  me  gravely  before  she  smiled. 

"Nobody  but  Jimmy  really  thinks  me  nice.  Nobody 
but  Jimmy  knows  how  nice  I  am." 

And  then  she  showed  me  the  house. 

I  praised  some  detail  that  Jevons  had  devised  (not  that 
there  was  much  detail ;  it  was  all  extremely  simple) .  And 
I  believe  she  saw  criticism  of  Jimmy  in  that. 

"I  know  it  looks  as  if  he  cared  a  lot  about  this  sort  of 
thing.  And  I  daresay  you  think  it's  silly  of  him.  But  he 
doesn't  really  care." 

"It  certainly  looks,"  I  said?  "as  if  he  cared  about  some- 
thing." 

"It's  me  he  cares  about,"  she  said. 

"And  do  you  care  about — this  sort  of  thing,  Viola  ?" 

"I  care  about  his  caring.  But  I  was  every  bit  as  happy 
in  that  little  four-roomed  house,  if  that's  what  you  mean." 

"Aren't  you  glad  to  have  more  room  to  move  about  in  ?" 


144  THE  BELFRY 

"I'm  glad  to  have  room  for  Daddy  and  Mummy  when 
they  come  to  stay." 

It  was  as  if  she  had  said,  "If  you  think  I'm  glad  to 
have  room  to  get  away  from  him  you're  mistaken." 

And  there  was  another  impression  that  she  gave  me.  It 
was  also  as  if  she  wanted  to  warn  me  not  to  form  the 
habit  of  coming  to  see  her  when  she  was  alone.  I  should 
gain  nothing  by  it.  If  I  insisted  on  seeing  her  alone  I 
should  get  Jimmy,  Jimmy,  all  the  time. 

I  didn't  try  to  see  her  again  alone. 

But  I  saw  her  often.  Jevons  was  always  asking  me 
there.  He  made  a  point  of  it  whenever  they  had  what 
Viola  called  "anybody  interesting."  By  this  she  meant 
somebody  belonging  to  the  confraternity  of  letters.  Jevons 
had  a  sort  of  idea  that  I  liked  meeting  these  people  and 
that  it  did  me  good.  The  house  in  Edwardes  Square  might 
have  become  a  haunt  of  Jimmy's  confreres  if  Jimmy  had 
had  time  to  attend  to  them  and  if  he  hadn't  been  so  de- 
liberately exclusive.  He  was  trying  for  the  best — not 
for  the  great  names  so  much  as  for  the  great  achievements, 
and  they  were  few.  And  there  were  one  or  two  of  them 
who  rejected  Jevons. 

And  then  you  had  to  reckon  with  Mrs.  Jevons's  rejec- 
tions. She  was  as  fastidious  in  her  way  as  he  was  in  his ; 
and  besides,  she  guarded  him,  so  that  the  circle  around 
him  was  rather  tight  and  small. 

Oh,  he  was  faithful ;  he  kept  me  in  it ;  he  gave  me  of  his 
best ;  and  if  he  could  have  made  me  shine  I  should  have 
blazed  among  them  all. 

It  doesn't  matter  now  which  of  them  I  met  there. 
Jevons  was  charming  to  them  all.  He  set  them  blazing. 
I  don't  think  he  cared  much  whether  he  blazed  or  not, 
but  if  he  felt  like  it  he  could  make  a  bigger  blaze  than 
any  of  them.  He  enjoyed  them ;  he  enjoyed  them  vastly, 


HER  BOOK  145 

violently.  Having  once  acquired  the  taste,  he  couldn't 
have  lived  without  the  intellectual  excitement  they  gave 
him.  But  except  for  that,  for  the  stimulus,  the  release 
of  energy,  it's  surprising  how  little  they  really  counted  for 
him. 

And  so  it's  not  those  evenings  and  that  brilliance  that 
I  remember. 

In  the  house  in  Edwardes  Square  I  seem  to  have  been 
always  meeting  Norah  Thesiger.  Now  that  they  had  a 
room  to  put  her  in,  she  would  be  there  for  months  at  a 
time.  And  whenever  she  was  there  they  would  be  sure 
to  ask  me.  If  Jevons  didn't,  Viola  did. 

There  was  that  summer,  too,  when  Norah  and  Mildred 
came  together  with  Charlie  Thesiger,  their  cousin,  who 
was  engaged  to  Mildred.  Charlie  was  then  a  lieutenant 
in  the  South  Kent  Hussars.  He  was  a  large  young  man, 
correct,  handsome,  rather  supercilious  and  rather  stupid. 
He  seemed  to  fill  the  house  in  Edwardes  Square  when  he 
was  in  it. 

He  doesn't  matter.  At  least,  he  didn't  matter  then. 
God  knows  he  never  really  mattered,  poor  boy,  at  any 
time.  But  he  is  important.  He  fixes  things  for  me.  He 
brings  me  to  the  incident  of  June,  nineteen-nine. 

It  was  a  very  slight  incident.  It  wouldn't  be  worth 
recording  except  that  it  stood  for  others  like  itself,  a  whole 
crowd.  And  it  was  of  such  slight  things  that  Viola's  tor-' 
ments  were  to  be  made. 

We  were  at  dinner  in  the  little  dining-room  looking  on 
the  flagged  court,  a  party  of  six:  Viola  at  the  head  of 
the  round  table,  with  her  back  to  the  light ;  Jevons  at  the 
foot,  facing  her,  with  the  light  full  on  him;  Charlie 
Thesiger  was  on  Viola's  right,  I  was  on  her  left,  facing 
him.  ISTorah  sat  next  to  me  on  Jevons's  right,  and  Mildred 


i46  THE  BELFRY 

sat  next  to  Charlie  on  Jevons' s  left,  facing  Norah.  We 
were  all  so  close  together  that  it  would  be  difficult  for  one1 
of  us  to  have  missed  anything  that  happened  or  was  said. 
And  Viola,  with  the  light  behind  her,  commanded  us  all. 

She  had  been  very  gay.  I  don't  suppose  Charlie  felt 
anything  strained  about  her  gaiety — he  was  not  observant 
— but  I  did,  and  I  put  it  down  to  Charlie's  presence,  to 
the  rather  flat  correctness  that  made  Jevons  stand  out. 
Another  thing  I  noticed  was  that,  in  labouring  for  refine- 
ment in  his  surroundings,  Jevons  hadn't  allowed  for  the 
effect  of  contrast.  It  hadn't  occurred  to  him  that  an  in- 
terior that  harmonized  with  Viola  would  be  damaging 
to  him.  And  it  was.  Just  how  damaging  I  hadn't  realized 
until  to-night  (which  shows  how  careful  he  must  have  been 
at  Canterbury) .  He  didn't  stand  out.  He  burst  out.  He 
never  sank  into  his  background  for  a  single  minute.  You 
had  to  be  aware  of  him  all  the  time. 

And  yet  in  a  party  of  the  confraternity  you  were  not 
aware  of  him  like  this.  For  then  he  blazed ;  and  in  the 
flare  he  made  you  didn't  notice  whether  he  tilted  his 
soup-plate  the  right  way  or  not,  or  care  if  he  couldn't 
use  his  table  napkin  or  his  pocket-handkerchief  and  look 
you  square  in  the  face  at  the  same  time.  Neither  did 
you  notice  these  things  if  you  were  alone  with  him  or  if 
only  ISTorah  and  Viola  were  there.  He  was  happy  with 
us,  and  happiness  was  becoming  to  him,  and  he  had  all 
sorts  of  endearing  ways  that  would  have  disarmed  us. 
And  then  there's  no  doubt  that  Viola  protected  him.  She 
watched  over  him ;  she  smoothed  his  social  path  for  him ; 
she  removed  his  worst  pitfalls;  she  ran,  as  it  were,  to 
pick  him  up  before  he  fell.  He  didn't  know  she  was 
watching  him ;  neither,  I  think,  did  she.  It  was  a  blind 
instinct  with  her  to  help  him.  And  Norah  and  I  helped 
him  too.  And  as  he  wasn't  nervous  with  us  everything 


HER  BOOK  147 

went  well.  But  when  strangers  got  into  our  party  it  was 
different.  Viola  couldn't  attend  to  him  properly;  and 
if  the  stranger  happened  to  be  rather  stupid,  like  Charlie 
Thesiger,  Jevons  didn't  blaze  and  so  cover  himself;  he 
got  bored;  and  when  he  was  bored  he  got  jumpy;  and  it 
was  when  he  got  jumpy  that  he  did  things. 

And  Charlie  was  getting  on  his  nerves. 

Still,  everything  went  well  until  the  table  was  cleared 
for  dessert;  and  there  was  no  reason  why  everything 
shouldn't  have  gone  well  even  then.  Viola  had  guarded 
against  his  most  inveterate  failing — a  habit  of  stretching 
for  things  across  the  table — by  putting  everything  he 
wanted  within  his  reach.  Within  Jevons's  reach  to-night 
was  a  little  dish  containing  among  other  things  chocolate 
nougat.  And  he  was  fond  of  nougat.  He  was  fond  also 
of  chaffing  Norah.  And  he  was  not  prepared  to  forego 
one  amusement  for  the  other.  And  Norah  had  taken  a 
mean  advantage  of  him.  She  had  timed  a  provocation  at 
the  moment  when  for  any  other  man  retort  would  have 
been  impossible;  and  she  hadn't  reckoned  with  Jevons's 
ingenuity  of  resource. 

I  am  not  going  to  say  what  he  did.  It  wouldn't  be  fair 
to  him.  It  was  a  little  thing,  but  you  couldn't  pretend 
for  one  moment  that  you  hadn't  seen  it,  any  more  than 
Jevons  could  do  anything  to  cover  the  fantastic  horror  of 
it.  We  simply  sat  and  stiffened ;  all  but  Norah,  who  burst 
out  laughing  in  Jimmy's  face. 

Mildred,  trying  to  help  him,  made  matters  worse  by 
asking  for  a  peach  when  she  had  got  a  large  one  on  her 
plate.  Charlie  Thesiger  looked  down  his  nose.  I  don't 
know  where  I  looked,  but  I  know  that  I  was  conscious 
of  Viola's  face  and  of  the  flush  that  darkened  it  to  the  tip 
of  her  chin  and  the  roots  of  her  hair.  And  I  could  feel 
the  shudder  down  her  back  passing  into  mine. 


I48  THE  BELFRY 

After  all,  Viola  did  cover  it.  She  lit  a  little  Koman 
lamp  they  had  and  sent  it  travelling  down  the  table  with 
the  cigarette-hox.  Then  she  got  up  and  went  to  Jevons 
and  stooped  over  his  shoulder  and  took  the  little  dish  from 
him. 

"If  anybody  wants  any  more  chocolates,"  she  said,  "they 
must  come  upstairs  for  them." 

"She  won't  trust  me  with  them,"  said  Jevons.  (He 
had  a  nerve.) 

Viola  trailed  off  upstairs  with  her  dish,  and  Mildred 
and  Charlie  followed  her. 

Norah  and  I  held  watch  with  Jevons,  who  leaned  back 
in  his  chair  and  smoked  and  rubbed  the  forefinger  of  his 
right  hand — the  innocent  instrument  (may  I  say  it  ?)  of 
his  crime — with  his  table  napkin,  and  contemplated  Norah 
in  a  drowsy  imperturbability. 

"Did  I  do  anything?"  he  said  presently. 

Norah  put  her  hand  on  his  arm  and  stroked  it. 

"No,  Jimmy  dear,"  she  said,  "of  course  you  didn't." 

It  was  then  that  I  was  aware  for  the  first  time  of  the 
beauty  of  Norah's  face.  Norah's,  not  Viola's.  Up  till 
then  I  could  never  see  anything  but  Viola's  face  in  it, 
coloured  wrong,  so  that  it  rather  worried  me  to  look  at 
it,  I  resented  the  everlasting  reminder  of  that  likeness 
under  that  perverse  and  disconcerting  difference.  If  her 
eyes  hadn't  been  so  blue  and  her  cheeks  so  pink;  if  only 
her  hair  had  been  a  little  darker  and  if  it  hadn't 
crinkled 

Now,  as  I  looked  at  her,  I  wondered  how  anybody  could 
think  she  was  like  Viola.  There  was  only  her  forehead 
and  the  odd  turn  of  her  jaw  and  nose — her  profile,  if  you 
like,  was  Viola's — but  (when  she  wasn't  laughing)  Norah's 
full  face  had  something  that  Viola's  hadn't  and  never 
would  have.  I  had  caught  it  now  and  then  and  couldn't 


HER  BOOK  149 

make  up  my  mind  what  it  was.  Now  I  saw  that  it  was 
a  sort  of  wisdom,  a  look  of  soberness  and  goodness  that 
I  couldn't  quite  account  for. 

Then  Jevons  explained  it  for  me. 

"The  Kiddy's  growing  up,"  he  said  (he  said  it  to  him- 
self). "She'll  be  twenty  to-morrow.  She  won't  throw  wet 
sponges  at  me  any  more." 

That  was  it.  Norah  was  growing  up.  Her  soft  face 
was  setting  and  the  expression  I  had  noticed  had  come  to 
stay. 

Presently  Jevons  got  up.    He  said  he  had  work  to  do. 

"The  Grand  Attack,  Furnival,  the  Grand  Attack !" 

And  he  left  us  together. 

Norah  looked  after  him. 

"Poor  little  Jimmy,"  she  said.  "I  don't  think  he  ever 
did  a  bad  thing  in  his  life." 

And  then,  with  what  seemed  a  daring  irrelevance,  "I 
wish  Charlie  wasn't  here.  I  can't  think  why  Viola  ever 
asked  him." 

"Why  shouldn't  she?" 

"Because  he's  bad  for  Jimmy.  He  puts  him  in  the 
wrong." 

I'm  afraid  I  laughed  a  little  brutally  at  the  extravagance 
of  this. 

"Well,"  she  said.    "I  can't  bear  him  to  suffer." 

"You've  got  a  very  tender  little  heart,  haven't  you?" 
I  said. 

"It  isn't  half  as  tender  as  Viola's.  But  I've  got  more 
common  sense.". 

"Then  why,"  I  said,  "did  you  laugh  at  Jimmy  just 
now?" 

"That's  why.  Because  it  was  the  best  thing  you  could 
do.  He  doesn't  mind  it  half  so  much  when  you  laugh 
at  him.  It's  people  looking  down  their  noses,  like  Charlie, 


150  THE  BELFRY 

that  he  minds.  It  must  be  awful  for  the  poor  little  chap, 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  living  on  the  edge,  never 
knowing  when  he's  going  to  do  something  that'll  make 
Viola's  blood  run  cold." 

"It  must  be  still  more  awful  for  Viola." 

To  that  she  said,  "It  isn't.  You  don't  know  how  Viola 
feels  about  Jimmy.  None  of  my  people  do.  They  simply 
don't  understand  it." 

"Oh,  come,"  I  said,  "they've  accepted  it,  haven't  they  ?" 

"They've  accepted  it  because  they  don't  understand  her. 
They  say  they  never  know  what  she'll  do  next,  and  Jim- 
my's come  as  a  sort  of  relief  to  them.  They  thought  she 
might  do  something  much  worse.  You  see,  she  isn't  a 
bit  like  any  of  us.  If  she  wants  to  do  a  thing  she'll  do 
it,  no  matter  what  it  is.  She  wanted  to  go  to  Bruges 
with  Jimmy  and  look  at  the  Belfry,  and  she  did  it  like  a 
shot.  What  they  can't  see  is  that  she'll  never  want  to  do 
anything  wrong,  so  she'll  never  do  it.  They  can't  see  that 
there  was  just  as  much  Belfry  as  Jimmy  in  it.  There 
always  will  be  a  Belfry  in  Viola's  life,  and  when  she  hears 
the  bells  going  she'll  run  off  to  see.  And  Jimmy's  the 
only  man  who'll  ever  take  her  to  a  Belfry. 

"She's  all  right.  Because  she  knows  that  Jimmy's 
really  ten  times  more  refined  than  any  of  us.  His  little 
soul's  all  made  of  beautiful  clean  white  silk.  But  Viola 
can't  go  on  telling  people  how  beautiful  he  is.  They've 
got  to  see  it  for  themselves. 

"I  wish  you  could  see  it  as  she  does.  I  wish  you  could 
see  how  she  feels  about  it " 

"My  dear  Norah,"  I  said,  "I've  been  trying  for  three 
years  to  see  as  Viola  sees,  and  feel  as  Viola  feels.  But 
how  can  I  ?  I'm  not  Viola." 

"But,"  she  said,  "you  do  understand  her.    If  I  thought 


HER  BOOK  151 

you  didn't — if  I  thought  that  you  could  go  back  on  her — 
and  if  you  go  back  on  Jimmy  you  go  back  on  her " 

"Well?" 

"Well,  I  don't  think  I  could  ever  speak  to  you  again." 

"My  dear  child,"  I  said,  "you're  absurd.  I  haven't 
gone  back  on  either  of  them.  Won't  it  do  if  I  see  Jimmy 
as  you  see  him  ?" 

"  Ye-es,"  she  said.    "But — I  wonder  if  you  do." 

"Norah,"  I  said  then,  "I  wonder  if  Viola's  as  sorry  for 
him  as  you  are.  I  hope  she  isn't." 

"She  isn't,  then.  She  isn't  sorry  for  him  a  bit.  No 
more  am  I.  You'll  make  me  sorry  for  you  if  you  don't 
take  care." 

When  we  went  to  say  good  night  to  Jevons  we  found 
Viola  sitting  on  the  arm  of  his  chair  with  the  little  dish 
in  her  hand,  feeding  him  with  chocolate  nougat.  Her 
posture  was  one  of  supple  contrition,  and  we  heard  her 
say: 

"Cheer  up,  Jimmy.  It  doesn't  really  matter  what  you 
do.  Nobody  would  ever  take  you  for  more  than  four 
years  old." 

Yes.  Norah,  the  youngest,  was  the  one  who  had  grown 
up. 


VIII 

NORAH  has  often  told  me  that  I  exaggerated  the  im- 
portance of  the  Nougat  Incident;  that  my  weakness  is  a 
tendency  to  dwell  with  a  morbid  concentration  on  small, 
inessential  details.  When  I  tell  her  that  if  I  succeed  in 
surviving  Jimmy  I  shall  write  his  biography,  she  tilts  her 
chin  and  says  I'm  the  last  person  who  should  attempt  it. 

"Between  us,"  she  says,  "we  might  manage  it.  But 
if  you're  left  to  yourself  you'll  make  him  all  nougat." 

When  I  retort  that  if  she  were  left  to  herself  she'd  elimi- 
nate the  very  things  that  make  him  the  engaging  animal 
he  is,  and  remind  her  that  a  straw  will  show  the  way  the 
wind's  blowing,  she  asks  me,  "Did  any  big  wind  ever  blow 
a  straw  before  it  all  the  way  ?" 

Well,  perhaps  I  am  the  very  last  person — he  made  me 
the  last  person  by  what  he  did  to  me — but  when  it  comes 
to  exaggeration  I  haven't  attached  more  importance  to  the 
Nougat  Incident  than  Jevons  did  himself.  Why,  when 
he  shut  himself  up  in  his  study  that  night,  instead  of 
hurling  himself  forward  in  the  Grand  Attack,  he  must 
have  sat  with  his  head  in  his  hands  brooding  over  it  and 
wondering  what  he'd  done;  he  must  have  gone  straight 
upstairs  to  ask  Viola  what  he'd  done,  or  there'd  have  been 
no  earthly  sense  in  what  we  heard  her  saying.  The  detail 
may  have  been  small,  but  it  was  not  inessential  when  it 
could  turn  Tasker  Jevons  from  the  Grand  Attack  as  he 
was  turned  that  night. 

I  tell  you,  and  Jevons  would  tell  you,  it  is  of  such  small 

152 


HER  BOOK  153 

things  that  tragedies  are  made — the  bitterest,  the  most 
insidious. 

And  when  Jevons  did  finally  hurl  himself,  when  he  shut 
himself  up,  morning  after  morning  and  night  after  night, 
to  labour  violently  on  his  greatest  work,  though  (for  just 
as  long  as  he  was  actually  engaged)  he  might  be  staving 
off  his  tragedy,  he  was  nevertheless  precipitating  the  event. 
You  may  say  that  when  you  get  him  there  in  his  study 
on  his  battlefield  you  are  among  the  big  forces  at  once; 
but  the  interesting  thing  is  that  those  big  forces  by  their 
very  expenditure  released  a  whole  crowd  of  little,  infinitely 
little  ones  that,  in  their  turn,  in  their  miniature  explosion, 
worked  for  his  destruction.  Jevons,  struggling  with  his 
social  disabilities,  was  like  a  giant  devoured  by  micro- 
scopically minute  organisms  over  whose  generation  he  had 
no  control. 

And  the  greater  the  man,  mind  you,  the  greater  the 
tragedy. 

Still,  for  those  two  years  in  Edwardes  Square,  he  staved 
it  off.  It  was  the  very  violence  of  his  labour,  the  pro- 
digious front  of  the  battle  he  delivered,  that  saved  him. 
Then  there  was  his  victory,  his  Third  Novel,  that  for  the 
time  threw  all  minor  happenings  into  the  background. 

He  was  right  again  in  his  forecast.  It  was  his  best 
work,  and  (I  use  his  own  phrase)  it  did  the  trick. 

When  it  came,  the  Grand  Attack  (which  was  bolder 
even  than  his  first  assault)  carried,  you  may  say,  the  whole 
position,  after  demolishing  at  one  stroke  the  enemy's  de- 
fences. For  he  had  enemies.  He  was  the  sort  of  man 
who  does  have  them.  He  didn't  make  them,  at  least,  not 
deliberately,  he  couldn't  have  been  bothered  to  make  them ; 
but  he  drew  them ;  they  seemed  to  rise  out  of  the  ground 
after  every  one  of  his  appearances. 

Well,  they  couldn't  say  he  hadn't  done  it  this  time. 


154  THE  BELFRY 

Done  it.  There's  no  good  trying  to  express  such  a  phe- 
nomenon as  Jevons  in  terms  of  literature.  You  can  only 
think  about  him  in  terms  of  action,  every  book  of  his  being 
an  onslaught  by  which  he  laid  his  public  low. 

And  this  time  he  had  conquered  America. 

Don't  ask  me  how  many  thousands  he  made  by  it.  I've 
forgotten.  They've  melted  into  the  tens  of  thousands  that 
he  made  before  he  had  finished.  Even  in  the  years  of  the 
Grand  Attack  he  was  making  his  old  father  an  allowance 
and  investing  large  sums  in  case  of  accidents.  (He  had 
been  putting  by  even  in  the  Hampstead  days.)  How  he 
did  it  I  can't  think,  though  he  has  tried  to  explain  it  to  me 
more  than  once.  The  whole  thing  for  him  was  as  obvious 
as  any  business  transaction  (he  had  the  sort  of  mind  for 
which  business  transactions  are  obvious) .  He  had  studied 
the  public  he  set  out  to  capture.  He  presented  the  life 
it  knew — the  moving,  changing,  fantastically  adventurous 
life  of  the  middle  classes.  Until  Jevons  rushed  on  them 
and  forced  their  eyes  open,  you  may  say  at  the  point  of  the 
bayonet,  the  middle  classes  didn't  know  they  were  moving 
and  changing  and  being  adventurous.  Nobody  knew.  It 
was  Jevons's  discovery. 

Then,  as  he  pointed  out,  there  were  innumerable  discre- 
tions in  his  valour.  He  knew  to  a  hairbreadth  how  far 
he  might  go,  and  he  went  no  farther.  He  respected  exist- 
ing prejudices  because  they  existed.  He  didn't  ask  awk- 
ward questions;  he  didn't  raise  problems;  he  had  the 
British  capacity  for  doing  serious  things  with  an  air  of 
not  taking  himself  seriously  and  frivolous  things  with  an 
astounding  gravity. 

"You  can  do  anything,  Furnival,"  he  said,  "if  you're 
only  funny  enough." 

Norah  tells  me  that  that  really  is  his  secret. 

But,  he  said,  the  whole  thing  was  as  calculable  as  any 


HER  BOOK  155 

successful  deal  on  the  Stock  Exchange.  When  you  asked 
him:  "Then  why  can't  other  people  do  it?"  he  said: 
"God  knows  why.  They  must  be  precious  fools  if  they 
want  to  do  it  and  don't  find  out  how.  I've  had  to  find 
out." 

For  one  year — the  last  year  in  Edwardes  Square — he 
enjoyed  pure  fame.  And  he  did  enjoy  it — I  think  he 
enjoyed  everything — like  a  child  with  a  mechanical  toy, 
or  a  girl  with  a  new  gown,  playing  with  it  and  trying  it  on 
by  snatches  when  he  could  spare  half  an  hour  from  his 
appalling  toil. 

Heavens,  how  he  worked  that  year !  With  a  hard,  punc- 
tual passion,  a  multiplied  energy,  like  five  financiers  en- 
gaged on  five  separate  transactions.  After  victory  in  the 
campaign  he  had  settled  down  to  business  and  the  works 
of  peace.  There  was  the  business  of  the  short  story ;  the 
business  of  the  monograph ;  the  business  of  the  magazine 
article  and  the  newspaper  column,  and  the  speculations 
that  developed  into  the  immense  business  of  his  plays. 
(I've  forgotten  how  much  he  netted  by  his  first  curtain- 
raiser.)  That's  five. 

As  I  look  back  on  him  he  seems  to  have  torn  through 
his  stages  at  an  incredible  pace.  There  are  several  that  I 
haven't  counted,  so  suddenly  did  he  leave  them  behind 
him:  the  stage  when  he  was  literary  adviser  to  a  firm  of 
publishers,  who  wouldn't  believe  him  when  he  said  the 
thing  was  calculable ;  the  stage  when  he  ceased  to  be  sub- 
editor of  Sport  and  became  editor,  an  appointment  so 
lucrative  that  you  may  judge  the  risk  he  took  when  he 
abandoned  it.  And  in  between  there  was  his  stage  of 
cruelty,  when  he  did  reviewing.  It  was  a  brief  stage,  but 
he  contrived  to  strew  the  field  with  the  reputations  he  had 
slaughtered  (Viola  used  to  plead  with  him  for  certain 
authors,  like  Queen  Philippa  for  the  burghers  of  Calais), 


156  THE  BELFRY 

until  his  job  was  taken  from  him  in  the  interests  of  hu- 
manity. 

Now — I  am  speaking  in  the  light  of  my  later  knowledge 
— the  first  effect  of  these  prodigious  and  passionate  la- 
bours was  beneficent,  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  Jevons, 
who  had  calculated  everything  to  a  nicety,  hadn't  allowed 
for  this  too.  To  say  nothing  of  the  peculiar  purity  of  his 
earlier  fame,  which  set  him  in  a  place  apart  and  assured 
beyond  all  possible  depreciation,  so  long  as  he  elected  to 
stay  there,  the  very  conditions  of  his  business  saved  him. 
He  enjoyed  in  those  two  desperate  years  the  immunities  of 
a  recluse.  The  results  were  prominently  before  the  pub- 
lic, but  Jimmy  wasn't.  His  study  was  literally  his  sanc- 
tuary. Sitting  there  nearly  all  day  and  half  the  night,  he 
was  removed  from  the  world's  observation  at  the  precise 
moment  when  it  became  inimical.  I  don't  mean  the  ob- 
servation of  the  confraternity  of  letters,  which  was  and 
always  had  been  kindly  to  his  personality,  and  had  taken 
little  or  no  notice  of  his  disabilities ;  I  mean  the  observa- 
tion of  the  world  he  married  into,  for  which  disabilities 
like  Jimmy's  count. 

He  was  also  removed  from  Viola's  observation  at  a 
time  when  I  think,  almost  unconsciously,  she  was  begin- 
ning to  criticize  him.  When  he  came  to  her  out  of  his 
sanctuary  he  came  with  its  consecration  on  him.  And  then 
there  was  the  appeal  he  made  to  her  tenderness.  If  the 
shudders  down  her  back  began  they  were  checked  by  the 
spectacle  of  his  exhaustion.  She  couldn't  shudder  at  the 
tired  conqueror  when  he  flung  himself  on  the  floor  beside 
her  and  laid  his  head  in  her  lap. 

I've  seen  her  with  him  like  that — once,  one  evening 
when  ISTorah  was  with  them,  and  I  had  turned  in  after 
dinner;  it  was  upstairs  in  that  drawing-room  in  Edwardes 
Square  that  they  had  made,  back  and  front,  in  an  L. 


HER  BOOK  157 

Norah  and  I  were  in  the  long,  narrow  part  at  the  back; 
you  know  how  those  little  town  rooms  go  when  they're 
knocked  into  one — the  fireplaces  in  the  same  wall  and 
windows  opposite  each  other,  so  that  the  back  rakes  the 
fireplace  end  of  the  front  part. 

Viola  and  Jevons  were  by  the  fireplace  in  the  front, 
she  in  her  low  chair  and  he  stretched  out  on  the  rug  at  her 
feet.  And  we  raked  them. 

They  didn't  know  they  were  observed.  I  think  they'd 
made  up  their  minds  that  when  Norah  and  I  were  to- 
gether we  couldn't  hear  or  see  anything  except  ourselves. 

And  so  we  heard  Viola  saying,  "What  do  you  do  it  for  ?" 

And  Jimmy,  "Oh,  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  I  suppose. 
What  does  one  do  things  for  ?" 

And  she,  "It'll  be  fine  fun  for  me,  won't  it,  when  you've 
killed  yourself  ?  When  you've  burst  the  top  of  your  head 
off  like  the  kitchen  boiler  ?" 

"I  should  have  to  run  dry  first,"  said  Jevons. 

"Well,  you  will,  boiling  away  seven — eight — nine  hours 
a  day  for  weeks  on  end.  Nobody  else  does  it." 

"Nobody  else  can  do  it,"  said  Jimmy  arrogantly. 

"It's  all  very  well;  but  if  you  don't  burst  your  head 
open  you'll  get  neuritis,  or  cramp.  Look  at  that  hand." 

"Which  hand?" 

"Your  right  hand,  silly."  She  took  it  and  poised  it 
frpm  the  wrist.  "Look  how  it  wobbles." 

He  looked. 

"It  does  wobble  a  bit.  Like  a  drunkard's.  And  I  don't 
drink." 

He  was  interested  in  his  hand. 

"You  goose,  where's  the  fun  of  letting  your  right  hand 
go  to  pieces  ?" 

"Easy  on.    They  won't  amputate  it,"  said  Jimmy. 


158  THE  BELFRY 

That  was  in  nineteen-nine.  This  is  nineteen-fifteen. 
And  only  yesterday  Norah  asked  me  if  I  remembered 
what  Jimmy  said  about  his  hand  the  night  we  were  en- 
gaged. 

Yes,  that  night  I  was  engaged  to  Norah  Thesiger. 

I  suppose  it  was  our  silence  that  made  Viola  and  Jimmy 
aware  of  us  at  last,  for  presently  I  saw  Jimmy  sit  up  on 
the  floor  and  take  Viola's  hand  and  squeeze  it,  and  then 
they  got  up  and  very  quietly  and  furtively  they  left  the 
room. 

And  the  minute  I  found  myself  alone  with  Norah  I  pro- 
posed to  her. 

I  don't  know  if  even  then  I  should  have  had  the  cour- 
age to  do  it  if  I  hadn't  been  driven  to  it  by  sheer  terror.  I 
forgot  to  say  that  I  was  in  Edwardes  Square  for  the  week- 
end and  that  Norah  was  not  staying  with  her  sister  this 
time,  but  with  her  uncle,  General  Thesiger,  at  Lancaster 
Gate.  And  for  three  days,  ever  since  her  arrival  at  Lan- 
caster Gate,  I  had  seen  the  possibility  of  losing  her. 

Otherwise  you  would  have  said  that  if  ever  there  was  a 
spontaneous  and  unexpected  performance,  it  was  my  pro- 
posal to  Norah  Thesiger. 

But  no ;  it  seemed  that  it  had  been  arranged  for  me  by 
Jevons,  planned  with  his  customary  deliberation  and  cal- 
culation long  ago.  This  may  have  been  the  reason  why 
Norah  said  she  wouldn't  tell  Viola  and  Jimmy  about  it 
herself;  she'd  rather  I  did. 

I  thought :  I  shan't  have  to  tell  them  till  to-morrow.  I 
had  to  take  Norah  to  Lancaster  Gate  in  a  taxi,  and  I 
walked  back  across  the  Serpentine  between  Kensington 
Gardens  and  Hyde  Park,  spinning  out  the  time  so  that 
Viola  and  Jimmy  might  be  in  bed  when  I  got  to  Ed- 
wardes Square. 


HER  BOOK  159 

I  found  them  sitting  up  for  me  in  Jimmy's  study. 

I  dreaded  telling  them  more  than  I  can  say.  I  don't 
know  with  what  countenance  a  man  can  come  and  tell  the 
woman  he  has  loved  (and  proposed  to  three  times  run- 
ning) that  he  has  consoled  himself  with  her  younger  sis- 
ter. I  wanted  to  avoid  every  appearance  of  a  fatuous  tri- 
umph in  my  success  with  Norah.  And  after  sticking  for 
four  years  to  my  vow  of  everlasting  devotion  to  Mrs. 
Jevons  I  shrank  from  the  confession  of  a  new  allegiance. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  owed  it  to  Norah  to  declare  myself 
happy  without  any  airs  of  deprecation  and  contrition. 
And  I  had  certain  obligations  to  the  Truth.  Why  I  should 
have  supposed  that  the  Truth  should  have  been  disagree- 
able to  Mrs.  Jevons  Heaven  only  knows.  I  suppose  these 
scruples  are  the  last  illusions  of  our  egoism.  Still,  I  think 
that  only  an  impudent  egoist  like  Jevons  could  have  car- 
ried off  such  an  embarrassment  with  any  brilliance. 

As  it  happened  it  was  taken  out  of  my  hands.  Jimmy, 
who  had  foreseen  the  thing  itself,  foresaw  also  my  predica- 
ment and  provided  for  it.  As  I  came  into  the  room  he 
said,  "It's  all  right,  old  man.  You  haven't  got  to  tell  us. 
We  know  all  about  it." 

I  looked  at  Viola.  She  was  sitting  on  part  of  Jimmy's 
chair,  with  her  arm  round  his  shoulder. 

"Did  Norah  tell  you,  after  all  ?"  I  said. 

Viola  pushed  out  her  chin  at  me  and  shook  her  head. 

"No,  Fumy  dear,  she  didn't  tell  me  a  thing.  It  was 
your  face." 

"Don't  you  believe  her,"  Jimmy  said.  "Your  face 
hasn't  anything  to  do  with  it.  Your  face  is  a  tomb  of 
secrets — a  beautiful,  white  tomb.  And  you  are  all  recti- 
tude and  discretion.  We  knew  it  ages  ago." 

"How  could  you  possibly  know  it,  when  I  didn't  ?" 


160  THE  BELFRY 

"Because  it's  one  of  those  things"  (he  twinkled)  "that 
other  people  always  do  know." 

"Were  we  as  obvious  as  all  that  ?" 

"I  didn't  say  you  were  obvious.    I  said  It  was." 

I  sat  down  facing  them,  and  I  suppose  I  must  have 
looked  supremely  foolish,  for  Viola  began  to  laugh  and 
Jevons  went  on  twinkling,  not  in  the  least  as  if  he  saw  a 
joke,  but  with  a  thoughtful  and  complacent  air,  as  if  he 
were  turning  over  the  result  of  some  private  speculation 
that  had  come  off  entirely  to  his  satisfaction. 

Then  she  took  pity  on  me. 

"He  means  it  was  bound  to  happen.  It  was  the  heaven- 
appointed  thing.  The  first  minute  I  saw  you,  Wally,  I 
thought,  'What  an  adorable  husband  he'd  make  for 
ISTorah !'  And  Jimmy's  trying  to  tell  you  that  we've  been 
hoping  it  would  come  and  wanting  it  to  come  and  waiting 
for  it  to  come  for  the  last  year." 

"I'm  trying  to  tell  him,"  said  Jimmy,  "that  we've  been 
meaning  it  to  come,  and  trying  to  make  it  come,  and  see- 
ing it  come  for  the  last  three  years." 

This  was  a  blow  at  the  attitude  of  romantic  devotion, 
and  I  had  to  defend  it. 

"Do  you  believe  that,  Viola  ?"  I  said. 

"Of  course  I  believe  it  if  Jimmy  says  so." 

I  sent  her  a  look  that  was  meant  to  say,  "You  ought 
to  know  better;"  but  it  missed  fire  somehow.  She  went 
on  swinging  her  feet  and  laughing  softly  at  me  over  Jim- 
my's shoulder.  She  seemed,  like  Jimmy,  to  be  contem- 
plating some  exquisite  knowledge  that  she  had.  And  at 
last  she  said : 

"Aren't  you  glad  now  that  you  didn't  marry  me  ?" 

I  said,  "What  am  I  to  say  to  that  ?" 

Jimmy  got  up  and  clapped  me  on  the  shoulder.    "Never 


HER  BOOK  161 

mind  her,"  he  said.  "Tell  the  truth  and  shame  the  devil. 
Tell  her  you're  thundering  glad." 

At  that  she  slid  down  from  her  perch  and  came  round 
to  me  and  patted  me  very  gently  on  the  head. 

"I  am,  Wally.    Jimmy,  you're  a  beast." 

And  she  went  out  of  the  room.  Jimmy  said  that  noth- 
ing she  had  contributed  to  the  discussion  became  her  like 
her  leaving  it. 

She  had  left  it  to  him. 

He  got  into  his  chair  again  and  sat  down  to  it. 

"Now,  perhaps,"  he  said,  "you  see  how  right  I  was." 

"When?" 

"The  first  time  we  ever  spoke  about  it." 

"My  dear  Jimmy,  I  haven't  spoken  to  anybody  about  it 
till  to-night." 

"We  spoke  about  it  years  ago,"  he  said. 

"We  couldn't  possibly  have  spoken  about  it  years  ago." 

"At  Bruges.  Perhaps  it  was  I  who  spoke.  I  tell  you  I 
saw  it  coming.  Don't  you  remember  I  gave  you  six 
months  ?" 

"You  were  out  there,  anyhow.  It's  taken  three  and  a 
half  years." 

"Because  you  were  such  a  duffer.  You  behaved  as  if 
you  expected  the  poor  child  to  propose  to  you  herself. 
I've  been  trying  to  make  you  see  it  for  the  last  three  and 
a  half  years,  and  you  wouldn't.  There  never  was  such 
a  chap  for  not  seeing  what's  under  his  nose." 

"Norah  isn't  under  my  nose ;  she's  miles  above  it,  and 
if  it  comes  to  that,  I've  seen  it  for  the  last  three  years." 

He  had  tripped  me  up  by  the  heels. 

"There  you  are — that  brings  it  to  the  six  months  I  gave 

you." 

"I  didn't  mean  I  was  thinking  of  it  then.  How  could 
I  be?" 


1 62  THE  BELFRY 

"Of  course  you  weren't  thinking  of  it.     But  she  was." 

"Norah  ?    Not  she !    A  child  of  seventeen !" 

"I  don't  mean  Norah.    I  mean  Viola." 

"Viola?" 

"Yes.  You  didn't  see  what  the  unscrupulous  minx  was 
after.  She  was  plotting  it  and  planning  it  the  first  time 
you  were  at  Canterbury.  I  got  a  letter  from  her  at  Bruges 
— I  can't  show  it  you — telling  me  not  to  worry  about  you 
— I  was  worrying  about  you,  though  you  were  such  a 
damn  fool,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so.  She  said 
you'd  got  over  it  all  right.  She  wouldn't  be  surprised  if 
some  day  you  married  Norah. 

"So  you  see,"  he  said,  "you  needn't  bother  about  Viola. 
She  knew  you  couldn't  keep  it  up  for  ever." 

"Keep  what  up?" 

(I  knew;  but  something  in  his  tone  or  in  his  twinkle 
made  me  pretend  I  didn't.) 

"Your  wonderful  attitude,"  he  said.  "She  meant  you 
to  marry  Norah." 

"Why — on  earth — should  she  have  wanted  that  ?" 

"Well — because  I  worried  about  you,  and  she  wanted 
me  to  be  happy.  And  because  she  worried  about  you,  and 
wanted  you  to  be  happy.  And  because  she  worried  about 
the  Kid,  and  wanted  her  to  be  happy.  And  because  she 
wanted  the  rest  of  them  to  be  happy  too." 

I  said  I  didn't  know  what  I'd  done  to  be  so  happy. 

"You've  done  nothing.  You  don't  owe  it  to  yourself 
that  you're  happy.  My  dear  fellow,  you've  been  watched, 
and  looked  after,  and  protected  for  three  and  a  half  years 
with  an  incessant  care.  If  you'd  been  left  to  yourself 
you'd  have  bungled  the  whole  business.  Either  you 
wouldn't  have  proposed  to  her  at  all,  or  you'd  have  pro- 
posed three  times  running  when  it  was  too  late." 


HER  BOOK  163 

I  pointed  out  to  him  that  I  hadn't  proposed  three  times 
running,  neither  was  I  too  late. 

"All  the  same,"  he  said,  "you  wouldn't  have  thought 
of  it  if  she  hadn't  gone  to  the  Thesigers.  And  she  wouldn't 
have  gone  to  the  Thesigers  if  Viola  hadn't  got  the  Thesig- 
ers to  ask  her.  It  was  a  put-up  job.  I  tell  you,  my  son, 
you've  been  guided  and  guarded.  Why,  you  didn't  even 
see  that  the  child  was  grown  up  till  I  drew  your  attention 
to  it." 

There  was  no  use  pretending  I  liked  it.    I  didn't. 

I  said,  "Thank  you.  If  a  thing  comes  off  it's  your  do- 
ing, and  if  it  doesn't  it's  mine." 

He  said  it  looked  like  that. 

When  I  saw  Norah  in  the  morning  she  asked  me 
whether  Jimmy  had  said  he  knew  it  was  coming  ? 

I  said  he  had. 

"And  I  suppose  he  thinks  he  made  it  come  ?" 

That,  I  said,  was  Jimmy's  attitude. 

"Well,  then,"  she  said,  "he  didn't.  You  don't  believe 
him,  do  you  ?" 

Did  I  ?  Not  perhaps  at  the  moment,  and  never  at  any 
time  as  Jimmy  believed  it  himself.  But  I  do  think  he 
meant  it  to  happen.  It  was  one  of  the  moves  in  his  diffi- 
cult game.  He  couldn't  afford  to  neglect  any  means  of 
strengthening  his  position  in  his  wife's  family.  When  it 
came  to  acknowledging  Jimmy  his  wife's  family  was 
divided.  Portions  of  it,  strange  cousins  whom  I  never 
met  till  after  my  marriage,  refused  to  acknowledge  him  at 
all.  At  Lancaster  Gate  he  was  received  coldly  in  accord- 
ance with  the  discreet  policy  by  which  the  Thesigers  had 
avoided  the  appearances  of  scandal.  Down  at  Canterbury 
there  were  degrees  and  shades  of  recognition.  Norah 
openly  loved  him.  The  Canon  had  what  he  called  "a 
morbid  liking  for  the  fellow."  Mildred  and  Victoria  tol- 


i64  THE  BELFRY 

erated  him.  Millicent  endured  him  as  an  infliction.  Mrs. 
Thesiger  concealed  under  the  most  beautiful  manners  and 
the  most  Christian  charity  an  inveterate  repugnance. 

I  have  forgotten  Bertie.  Bertie,  who  could  generally 
be  found  at  Lancaster  Gate  when  he  wasn't  in  his  cham- 
bers in  the  Temple,  was  apathetic  and  amiably  evasive. 
He  took  the  line  that  Lancaster  Gate  took  when  he  re- 
ferred to  his  brother-in-law  as  a  clever  little  beast. 

And  to  all  these  shades  Jevons  was  acutely  sensitive. 

I  have  known  men  (they  were  of  the  confraternity  of 
letters)  who  declared  that  they  could  not  understand  why 
a  man  like  Jevons,  in  Jevons's  position,  should  have 
bothered  his  head  for  two  minutes  about  his  wife's  family. 
They  considered  that  Jevons's  marriage  was  a  disaster, 
not  for  the  Thesigers,  but  for  Jevons,  and  that  his  only 
safe  and  proper  course  was  to  leave  the  Thesigers  alone. 
But  it  wasn't  so  easy  to  leave  them  alone  when  he  had 
married  into  them';  and  to  have  left  them  would  have 
been  for  Jevons  a  confession  of  failure.  He  might  just 
as  well  have  laid  down  his  arms  or  pulled  down  the  shut- 
ters of  his  shop.  From  the  very  beginning,  ever  since  the 
day  when  he  had  met  Reggie  Thesiger,  he  conceived  that 
the  whole  world  of  Thesigers  had  challenged  him  to  hold 
his  own  in  it,  and  he  was  too  stubborn  a  fighter  to  retire 
on  a  challenge.  Besides,  he  couldn't  have  retracted  with- 
out taking  Viola  with  him. 

And  you  must  remember  that  he  was  thirty-two  when 
he  married  her,  and  that  he  had  behind  him  an  unknown 
history  of  struggle  and  humiliation  and  defeat.  The 
Thesigers  stood  for  the  whole  world  of  things  that  he  had 
missed,  the  world  of  admired  refinements  and  beautiful 
amenities,  that,  without  abating  one  atom  of  its  refine- 
ment and  amenity,  had  persistently  kicked  him  out.  Be- 
sides— and  this  was  the  pathetic  part  of  it — he  had  an 


HER  BOOK  165 

irrepressible  affection  for  the  Canterbury  Thesigers,  and 
it  hungered  and  thirsted  for  recognition.  It  nourished  it- 
self in  secret  on  any  scraps  that  came  its  way.  He  met 
tolerance  with  grace,  and  any  sort  of  kindness  with  pas- 
sionate gratitude.  I  think  he  would  have  broken  his  neck 
to  give  Norah  or  the  Canon  or  even  Mrs.  Thesiger  any- 
thing they  wanted.  And  the  Canon  and  Mrs.  Thesiger 
wanted  Norah  to  marry  me.  It  wouldn't  become  me  to 
say  what  Norah  wanted. 

Viola,  in  a  serious  moment,  threw  a  light  on  it.  (I  had 
been  dining  in  Edwardes  Square  on  the  evening  of  the 
day  I  came  back  from  Canterbury  after  taking  Norah 
down  there.) 

"I  suppose  you  don't  know,"  she  said,  "that  Mummy 
and  Daddy  fell  in  love  with  you  first?  Well,  they  did. 
They  wanted  you  to  marry  me  to  keep  me  out  of  mischief, 
but  more  than  anything  they  wanted  you  to  marry  Norah. 
You  see,  she's  their  favourite." 

And  it  seemed  there  was  even  more  in  it  than  that. 
They  wanted  to  keep  Norah  out  of  mischief  too.  "Not," 
she  said,  "that  ISTorah  would  ever  have  run  off  to  Belgium, 
even  with  you."  But  that  little  adventure  of  Viola's  had 
made  them  nervous.  Norah  was  inclined  to  look  down 
on  the  garrison;  like  Viola,  she  had  declared  in  the  most 
decided  manner  that  she  meant  to  strike  out  a  line  for 
herself;  she  wasn't  going  to  follow  Dorothy's  and  Gwin- 
ny's  lead  (did  I  say  that  the  two  married  sisters  lived 
abroad  at  their  husbands'  stations — Gwinny  at  Gibraltar, 
and  Dorothy  at  Simla  ?) ,  and  that  for  lack  of  originality 
Mildred's  engagement  to  Charlie  Thesiger  was  "the  limit." 

"It's  a  good  thing,  Wally,"  she  said.  "It'll  knit  us  all 
tighter  together.  That's  partly  why  we've  wanted  it  so 
awfully.  Do  you  know  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  you 


166  THE  BELFRY 

Norah  wouldn't  have  been  allowed  to  come  and  stay  with 
us?" 

I  said  I  was  sure  she  was  mistaken.  Canon  Thesi- 
ger 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "it  wasn't  Daddy.  He  wouldn't  have 
minded.  It  was  Mummy.  She  never  could  bear  poor 
Jimmy." 

"But,"  she  went  on,  "you're  his  friend.  And  he  worked 
it  for  you.  They  can't  get  over  those  two  things." 

I  remember  wondering  whether  deep  down  in  her  heart 
she  meant  that  my  marriage  would  knit  her  and  Jimmy 
closer  ? 

I  wondered  whether  Jimmy,  in  his  wisdom,  had  calcu- 
lated on  that,  too  ? 

At  that  time  I  didn't  realize  the  innocence  that  went 
with  Jimmy's  wisdom.  I  think  I  credited  him  with  in- 
sight that  I  know  now  he  never  had.  I  know  now  that, 
even  afterwards — at  the  very  worst — he  had  no  misgiv- 
ings. All  the  Hampstead  time,  all  through  the  Edwardes 
Square  time  he  was  happy.  And  afterwards — well — hap- 
piness wasn't  the  word  for  it ;  he  lived  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy. 
Which  shows  how  little  in  those  days  she  had  let  him 
see. 

It  was  in  nineteen-ten,  their  last  year  in  Edwardes 
Square,  that  the  tension  began.  Norah  and  I  were  mar- 
ried in  the  autumn  of  nineteen-nine,  and  we  were  living  in 
my  flat  in  Brunswick  Square.  In  what  I  made  out  dur- 
ing this  period  I  had  Norah  to  help  me,  and  she  had  won- 
derful lights. 

I  never  could  keep  track  of  Jimmy's  accelerating  ma- 
terial progress,  but  the  Year-Books  tell  me  that  his  fourth 
novel  came  out  in  the  spring  of  nineteen-nine,  and  his 
first  successful  play  was  produced  in  the  summer  of  that 


HER  BOOK  167 

year,  and  ran  for  the  whole  season  and  on  through  the 
winter,  and  I  remember  that  in  nineteen-ten  he  was  at- 
tacking another  novel  and  another  play,  which — But  it's 
the  attack  that  is  the  important  thing,  the  thing  that  fixes 
nineteen-ten  for  me. 

You  cannot  go  on  attacking,  for  years  on  end,  with  con- 
centrated and  increasing  violence,  and  not  suffer  for  it. 
The  first  effects  of  Jimmy's  appalling  travail  may  have 
been  beneficent,  but  its  later  workings  were  malign. 
There's  no  other  word  for  it.  In  nineteen-ten  Jimmy  was 
beginning  to  show  signs  of  exhaustion.  Not  of  his  creative 
energy  or  anything  belonging  to  it,  though  he  prophesied 
a  falling  off  after  Novel  Three,  and  declared  that  he  could 
detect  it.  Nobody  else  could  have  detected  it.  The  ex- 
haustion was  in  Jimmy  himself,  and  more  especially  and 
fatally  in  the  Jimmy  who  struggled  against  what  he  called 
"the  damnable  tendency  to  do  the  sort  of  thing  your  fa- 
ther does." 

He  couldn't  keep  it  up.  He  couldn't  stand  for  ever  the 
double  strain  of  attacking  and  defending  himself  against 
his  tendency.  There's  no  doubt  that  when  he  was  tired 
he  got  careless.  I  have  known  him  come  upstairs  after 
dinner,  entirely  sober,  but  looking  rather  drunk,  with  his 
hair  curling  over  his  forehead  and  his  tie  crooked  and  the 
buttons  of  his  irreproachable  little  waistcoat  all  undone. 
I  have  known  him  do  the  oddest  things  with  chairs  and 
get  into  postures  inconceivable  to  ordinary  men.  I  have 
known  him  drop  his  aitches  for  a  whole  evening  because 
he  was  too  dead  beat  to  hang  on  to  them.  And  Norah, 
going  home  with  me,  would  say,  "Poor  Jimmy — he  does 
get  it  very  badly  when  he's  tired." 

And  I  have  had  to  see  Viola's  face  while  these  things 
were  happening.  Sometimes,  when  he  was  too  outrageous, 
she  would  look  up  and  smile  with  the  queerest  little  half- 


i68  THE  BELFRY 

frightened  wonder,  and  I  would  be  reminded  of  the  time 
when  Jimmy  had  jaundice  and  she  asked  me  if  I  thought 
he  would  stay  that  funny  yellow  colour  all  his  life?  It 
was  as  if  she  were  asking  me,  Did  I  think  he  would  keep 
on  all  his  life  doing  these  rather  alarming  things  ?  Some- 
times he  would  catch  himself  doing  them  and  say,  "See 
me  do  that  ?  That's  because  I'm  agitated."  Or,  "There's 
another  aitch  gone.  Collar  it,  somebody."  Or,  "I  sup- 
pose that's  what  Norah  would  call  one  of  my  sillysosms." 
Sometimes  Viola  would  catch  him  at  it  and  reprove  him. 
And  then  he  would  simply  throw  the  responsibility  on  the 
poor  old  Registrar  down  in  Hertfordshire. 

I  have  heard  him  say  to  her  with  extreme  sweetness 
and  docility:  "My  dear  child,  if  I'd  had  a  father  and 
mother  like  yours  I  shouldn't  do  these  things."  And  I 
have  heard  him  say  almost  with  bitterness:  "Does  that 
shock  you  ?  Good  Heavens,  you  should  see  my  father !" 

But  he  took  good  care  she  shouldn't  see  him.  I  used 
to  think  this  wasn't  very  nice  of  him.  But  what  can  a 
man  do  in  a  case  so  desperate?  There  were  risks  that 
even  Jevons  couldn't  take.  I  used  to  think  that  he  salved 
his  conscience  by  making  the  Registrar  an  allowance  that 
increased  in  proportion  to  his  income  and  by  going  down 
into  Hertfordshire  regularly  every  three  months  to  see 
him  himself.  I  used  to  think  that  Jimmy's  father  must 
have  admirable  tact,  because  he  never  seemed  to  have  in- 
quired why  Jimmy  always  came  alone.  But  Jimmy  said 
it  wasn't  tact.  It  was  pure  haughtiness.  The  old  bird,  he 
said,  was  as  proud  as  a  peacock  with  his  tail  up.  I  used 
to  think  it  wasn't  very  nice  of  him  to  talk  like  that  about 
his  father.  And  I  used  to  think  it  wasn't  very  nice  of 
Viola  never  to  go  with  Jimmy  on  his  pilgrimages. 

I  was  with  them  once  when  she  was  seeing  him  off  at 


HER  BOOK  169 

Euston,  and  I  said  to  her,  "Do  you  never  go  with  him  to 
see  the  poor  old  man  ?" 

She  turned  to  me.  (I  hadn't  seen  her  look  stern  and 
fiery  before.) 

"Wally,"  she  said,  "I  suppose  it's  because  you're  so 
good  that  you  always  think  other  people  aren't.  That 
poor  old  man  was  a  perfect  devil  to  Jimmy.  I  don't  say 
that  Jimmy  always  was  an  angel  to  him,  but  he's  been 
pretty  decent,  considering.  He's  told  me  things  I  couldn't 
tell  you;  and  there  were  things  he  couldn't  tell  me.  He 
says  he  didn't  believe  in  God  the  Father  when  he  was 
little,  just  because  he  wanted  to  believe  in  God.  He 
thought  God  couldn't  be  anything  so  frightful  as  a  father. 

"That's  why  he's  so  awfully  fond  of  Daddy." 

And  so  it  went  on.  She  swung  between  slight  shocks 
and  passionate  recoveries.  One  minute  Jimmy's  manners 
made  her  shudder  all  down  her  spine,  and  the  next  he 
would  do  some  adorable  thing  that  brought  her  to  his  feet. 
Half  the  time  she  pretended  that  things  hadn't  happened 
when  they  had.  And  when  her  flesh  crept  she  had 
memories  that  lashed  it. 

I  used  to  wonder  whether  this  oscillation  would  slacken 
or  increase  with  time.  Would  she  swing  on  a  longer  and 
more  dangerous  rhythm  ?  Would  she  be  flung  backwards 
and  forwards  between  fascination  and  repulsion  ? 

And  I  would  catch  myself  up  and  answer  my  own 
words,  "Of  course  not.  The  poor  chap  isn't  as  bad  as  all 
that." 

Then  early  in  nineteen-ten  Reggie  Thesiger  came  home 
on  leave  from  India. 

Looking  back  on  it  all  now,  I  seem  to  see  that  until  he 
came  everything  was  going  well.  The  oscillations,  even  if 


170  THE  BELFRY 

I  didn't  exaggerate  them,  couldn't  have  counted.  Her 
heart  was  steady,  and  in  her  heart  she  adored  her  hus- 
band. There  could  be  no  doubt  about  it,  she  adored  him. 
It  was  because  she  adored  him  that  she  suffered.  Nobody 
can  stand  imperfection  in  their  god. 

But  then  she  adored  Reggie  too. 

She  hadn't  a  misgiving.  When  Norah  rushed  to  her 
with  the  news  that  Reggie  had  got  his  leave,  she  went  wild 
and  nearly  strangled  poor  little  Jimmy  in  her  joy.  She 
counted  the  weeks,  the  days,  the  hours  till  he  landed. 
She  argued  with  Nbrah  as  to  which  of  them  should  have 
him  first  and  longest  when  he  came  to  town.  Norah  told 
me  she  didn't  think  he  would  stop  long  with  us  if  he  could 
go  to  Viola.  Viola  was  his  favourite  sister,. 

Well,  he  didn't  go  to  Viola  at  all.  He  went  first  to  the 
Thesigers  at  Lancaster  Gate.  Then  he  came  on  to  us. 

That  was  all  right.  We  had  to  arrange  our  dates  to  suit 
the  General. 

On  the  Sunday  we  dined  at  Lancaster  Gate ;  Viola  and 
Jevons  were  not  there.  Reggie  had  come  up  on  the  Friday 
for  ten  days,  and  he  stayed  with  the  General  for  the  week- 
end. 

He  said  he  could  stay  with  us  for  the  whole  week  if  we 
could  have  him. 

We  were  out  in  the  hall  saying  good-bye,  and  he  was 
getting  Norah's  cloak  for  her.  The  hall  was  full  of  Thesi- 
gers and  guests.  I  remember  Norah  saying,  "We'd  love  to 
have  you.  But — we  promised  Vee-Vee  to  divide  you  with 
her." 

And  I  remember  seeing  Reggie's  face  stiffen  over  the 
collar  of  the  cloak  as  he  held  it.  He  said  he  didn't  want 
to  be  divided. 

It  was  so  startling,  she  told  me  afterwards,  that  she 
lost  her  head.  She  said  out  loud,  so  that  everybody  heard 


HER  BOOK  171 

her,  "Not  with  Vee-Vee?"  And  everybody  heard  his 
answer : 

"Not  with  Jevons." 

Then  he  laughed. 

In  spite  of  the  laugh  Norah  was  quite  frightened.  She 
asked  me,  going  home  in  the  taxi,  what  I  thought  it  meant. 
I  said  I  thought  it  meant  that  Reggie  didn't  particularly 
care  about  meeting  Jimmy.  She  said,  "Well,  he'll  have 
to  meet  him  to-morrow  night.  I'm  jolly  glad  we've  asked 
them." 

She  added  pensively,  "Reggie's  quite  changed.  I  sup- 
pose it's  India." 

I  knew  she  didn't  suppose  anything  of  the  sort.  She 
thought  the  General  had  been  telling  him  things;  and 
I  must  confess  I  thought  so  too.  Here,  I  may  say  at  once, 
we  did  that  kindly  and  honourable  gentleman  a  wrong. 

He  came  to  us  in  great  distress  the  next  morning.  He 
said  Viola  and  Jevons  were  to  have  dined  with  them  last 
night,  only  Reggie  had  declared  he  wouldn't  have  anything 
to  do  with  Jevons.  He  didn't  want  to  meet  him  if  he 
could  help  it.  He  said,  Couldn't  they  ask  Viola  without 
him  ?  And  they  had  asked  Viola  without  him,  and  Viola 
had  refused  to  come. 

"And  do  you  know"  (he  stared  at  us  in  a  sort  of  help- 
less horror)  "he  hasn't  been  to  see  her  yet." 

The  poor  General  went  away  quite  depressed.  He  lin- 
gered with  me  on  the  doorstep  a  moment.  "I'm  afraid, 
Furnival,"  he  said,  "Reggie's  going  to  make  it  very  awk- 
ward for  us." 

He  did  make  it  awkward. 

It  might  have  been  discreet  to  have  put  off  our  dinner. 
But  I  knew  that  Norah  wouldn't  hear  of  it ;  all  the  more  if 
Reggie  was  going  to  make  it  awkward.  You  don't  sup- 


172  THE  BELFRY 

pose  one  Thesiger  was  going  to  knuckle  under  to  another. 
It  wasn't  their  way.  They  were  loyal  to  the  last  degree, 
but  loyalty  was  another  matter.  And  if  it  came  to  that 
she  was  loyal  to  her  sister. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  dinner.  I  shall  never  forget 
Viola's  coming  in  with  Jevons  behind  her. 

She  was,  as  I  think  I've  said,  a  beautifully-made  woman, 
with  long  limbs  and  superb  shoulders,  and  a  way  of  hold- 
ing her  small  head  high.  Well,  she  came  in  (they  were  a 
little  late)  with  her  head  higher  than  ever,  and  with  a 
sweep  of  her  limbs,  as  if  her  crushed  draperies  (she  was 
all  in  white)  were  blown  backward  by  a  wind ;  her  gauze 
scarf  billowed  behind  her  as  if  it  were  wings  or  sails  and 
the  wind  filled  it.  She  was  like  the  Victory  of  Samo- 
thrace ;  she  was  like  a  guardian  and  avenging  angel ;  she 
was  like  a  ship  in  full  sail  breasting  a  sea.  Up  to  her 
eyes  she  was  everything  that  was  ever  splendid  and 
courageous  and  defiant. 

But  her  eyes — there  was  a  sort  of  scared  grief  in 
them. 

I  had  seen  fright  in  her  face  once  before,  the  day  when 
she  came  into  the  room  at  Hampstead  with  Jevons  behind 
her  and  saw  Reggie  there.  I  said  to  myself,  "She  always 
was  afraid  of  Reggie."  But  that,  for  the  second  that  it 
lasted,  was  sheer  fright.  This  was  different.  There  was 
anguish  in  it ;  and  it  was  only  in  her  eyes. 

And  Jevons's  entry,  this  time,  was  simultaneous.  Little 
Jimmy  came  behind  her,  holding  himself  rather  absurdly 
straight  and  breathing  hard. 

And  there  was  Reggie  Thesiger  waiting  for  them,  stand- 
ing by  the  hearth  between  Norah  and  me. 

Oh  yes,  India  had  changed  him.  Surely,  I  thought,  it 
must  be  India  that  had  made  him  so  lean  and  stiff  and 
hard.  But  he  was  handsomer  even  than  he  had  been  five 


HER  BOOK  173 

years  ago,  and  he  looked  taller,  he  was  so  formidably  up- 
right and  well-built.  (As  a  competitive  exhibition  Jim- 
my's straightness  was  pitiful.  And  yet,  if  his  antagonist 
had  been  anybody  but  Reggie,  it  might  have  had  a  certain 
dignity.) 

I  wondered,  "How  is  she  going  to  greet  him  ?  Will  she 
lower  her  flag  and  kiss  him,  or  what  ?" 

She  sailed  up  to  Norah  first  and  kissed  her.  She  shook 
hands  with  me.  She  smiled  at  me  (I  don't  know  how 
she  managed  it).  Then  she  turned  to  Reggie. 

She  didn't  lower  her  flag.  She  said,  "Well,  Reggie," 
as  if  they  had  met  yesterday.  There  was  no  kissing  or 
any  anticipation  of  a  kiss ;  they  shook  hands,  not  at  arm's 
length,  not  in  the  least  as  if  they  had  had  a  quarrel,  but 
like  well-bred  people  in  the  house  of  strangers.  It  was  all 
beautifully  done. 

Then  it  was  Jimmy's  turn.  Reggie  looked  at  him  as  if 
he  wasn't  there. 

If  I  could  have  run  away  with  any  decency  I'd  have 
run  rather  than  face  what  came  then.  But  the  women — 
Heavens,  how  they  stood  to  their  guns ! 

Norah  said,  "Reggie,  I  think  you  know  your  brother- 
in-law?"  with  an  air  of  stating  a  platitude  rather  than 
of  recalling  him  to  a  courtesy  he  had  forgotten. 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Reggie. 

But  he  bowed.  And  Jimmy  bowed.  There  was  no 
handshaking,  at  arm's  length  or  otherwise. 

Viola  said,  "You  do  know  him.  You  met  him  four 
years  ago  in  my  rooms  at  Hampstead." 

"Did  I  ?    I'm  afraid  I've  forgotten." 

"You  did  meet,  didn't  you,  Jimmy  ?" 

"I  believe  so,"  said  Jimmy,  with  a  quite  admirable  in- 
difference. 


174  THE  BELFRY 

"Anyhow,"  said  Norah  sweetly,  "you  can't  say  you 
haven't  heard  of  him." 

She  meant  well,  poor  darling,  but  it  was  a  bad  shot.  It 
missed  its  mark  completely,  and  it  drew  down  the  enemy's 
fire. 

"I  have  heard  of  Mr.  Jevons,"  said  Reggie,  and  he 
looked  at  Jimmy  as  if  he  realized  for  the  first  time  that 
he  was  there,  and  resented  it. 

Norah  turned  positively  white.  It  was  Viola  who  saved 
us. 

"Please  don't,  Itforah.  It's  really  awful  for  poor  Jimmy 
now  he's  on  all  the  buses  and  in  the  Tube  ?" 

She  referred  to  the  monstrous  posters  that  advertised 
his  play  in  black  letters  eighteen  inches  high  on  a  scarlet 
ground. 

"How  do  you  feel  when  you're  in  the  Tube?"  said 
Nbrah. 

"You  feel,"  said  Jimmy — he  was  sitting  in  one  of  his 
worst  attitudes,  with  his  legs  stretched  straight  out  before 
him  and  his  feet  tilted  toes  upwards.  I  noticed  that 
Reggie  couldn't  bear  to  look  at  him — "you  feel  first  of  all 
as  if  everybody  was  looking  at  you ;  you  feel  a  silly  ass ; 
then  you  feel  as  if  everybody  was  looking  at  the  posters ; 
then  you  know  they  aren't  looking  at  them.  Then  you 
leave  off  looking  at  them  yourself.  And  if  one  does  hit 
you  in  the  eye  you  feel  as  if  it  referred  to  somebody  else, 
and  after  that  you  don't  feel  anything  more." 

It  wasn't  brilliant,  but  the  wonder  was  he  found  any- 
thing to  say  at  all. 

I  was  thankful  when  Pavitt  came  in  to  tell  us  that 
dinner  was  served.  It  delivered  us  from  Jimmy's  atti- 
tudes. 

When  it  came  to  dining  at  our  small  round  table  we 
eaw  how  badly  we  had  erred  in  not  asking  anybody  else 


HER  BOOK  175 

but  Viola  and  Jimmy.  A  sixth,  a  woman  (almost  any 
woman  would  have  done  in  the  circumstances),  a  woman 
to  talk  to  Reggie  might  have  pulled  us  through.  But  with 
Reggie  sitting  beside  Viola,  with  Jimmy  opposite  them 
by  himself  between  me  and  Norah  (the  only  possible  ar- 
rangement) it  was  terrible. 

Reggie  persisted  in  talking  to  Viola  like  a  well-bred 
stranger.  He  persisted  in  ignoring  Jevons. 

And  Jimmy  retaliated  by  ignoring  him.  There  was 
nothing  else  for  him  to  do.  Only  it  wasn't  one  of  the 
things  he  did  well.  Beside  Reggie's  accomplishment  he 
looked  mean  and  pitiful  and  a  little  vulgar.  God  for- 
give me  for  putting  it  down,  but  that  is  how  he  looked. 

And  once  or  twice,  under  the  strain  of  it,  he  dropped 
an  aitch  with  the  most  disconcerting  effect. 

I  often  wonder  what  Pavitt  thought  of  that  family 
party.  He  certainly  served  Viola  as  if  he  loved  her,  and 
Jimmy  as  if  he  was  sorry  for  him,  calling  his  attention 
to  a  dish  or  a  wine  which,  he  seemed  to  say,  it  would  be 
a  pity  for  him  to  miss — it  might  prove  a  consolation  to 
him. 

Our  agony  became  so  unbearable  that  the  women  ended 
it  when  they  could  by  leaving  us  at  the  stage  of  coffee  and 
cigarettes.  Then,  with  us  three  men  the  position  became 
untenable,  and  Reggie  found  that  he'd  have  to  go  out  at 
nine ;  he  had  an  appointment  with  a  fellow.  And  at  nine 
he  went. 

Viola  and  Jimmy  left  us  very  soon  after. 

She  said,  "It  was  dear  of  you  to  have  us,"  not  in  the 
least  humbly,  but  as  if  they  had  enjoyed  it. 

Up  to  the  very  last  she  was  magnificent,  and  even  Jimmy 
played  up  well.  In  fact,  when  Reggie's  perfection  was 
no  longer  there  to  damage  him  he  was  rather  fine. 

It  was  poor  little  Norah  who  broke  down.    I  found  her 


i76  THE  BELFRY 

crying  all  by  herself  on  the  couch  in  my  study  when  they'd 
gone. 

She  said,  "Wally,  this  is  awful.  It's  the  most  awful 
thing  that  could  have  happened." 

I  said,  "Oh,  come — "  and  she  persisted.  "But  it  is. 
She  adored  Reggie.  He  used  to  adore  her — and — you've 
seen  him,  how  he  was  to-night.  It'll  kill  her  if  he  keeps 
it  up." 

I  said,  "He  won't  keep  it  up." 

"Oh,  won't  he !    You  don't  know  Reggie." 

I  said,  "It's  odd.  He  didn't  seem  to  mind  Jimmy  so 
much  the  first  day  he  met  him." 

"Oh,  my  dear — he  didn't  mind,  because  he  never  could 
have  dreamed  she'd  marry  him." 

"He'll  come  round  all  right  when  he  knows  him,"  I 
said. 

She  shook  her  head  and  made  little  dabs  at  her  face 
with  her  pocket-handkerchief. 

"That's  just  it.  He  thinks  he  does  know  him.  I  mean 
he  thinks  he  knows  something.  I'm  sure  he  thinks  it." 

"My  dear  child,  however  could  he?  He  couldn't  even 
have  heard.  If  you  mean  that  Belgian  business,  it  was  all 
over  and  done  with  four  years  ago.  Have  we  any  of  us 
thought  of  it  since  3" 

"No — but  I  think  he  had  an  idea  then.  He  guessed  that 
there  must  be  something.  You  see — we  never  told  Vee- 
Vee,  but — he  thought  it  was  awfully  queer  of  her  to  go 
off — anywhere — just  when  he  was  sailing." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "it  was  a  bit  odd.  She  must  have  been 
awfully  gone  on  Jimmy." 

"She  was." 

"Poor  dear.    She  said  she  meant  to  burn  her  boats." 

"Don't  you  see — that  was  part  of  the  burning.  She 
had  to  break  the  hold  that  Reggie  had  on  her.  You  don't 


HER  BOOK  177 

know  what  it  was  like,  Wally.  She  had  to  break  it  or  she 
could  never  have  married  Jimmy  at  all.  It  was  a  toss-up 
between  them ;  and  Jimmy  won." 

"Is  it  going  to  be  a  toss-up  between  them  all  over  again, 
d'you  think  ?"  I  said. 

"No.  It's  going  to  be  war  to  the  knife.  They  won't 
either  of  them  give  in  as  long  as  Reggie's  got  that  idea  in 
his  head." 

"We  must  get  it  out  of  his  head.  Surely,"  I  said,  "we 
can  do  something." 

"No,  we  can't.  There's  no  way  of  getting  it  out.  It's 
no  good  trying  to  make  a  joke  of  it.  You  can't  joke  with 
Reggie  past  a  certain  point.  And  it's  not  as  if  you  could 
give  him  a  hint.  You  can't  hint  at  these  things." 

"What  do  you  think  he'll  do?" 

"He  won't  do  anything.  He  won't  say  anything.  He'll 
just  go  on  like  this  all  the  time,  and  she  won't  be  able  to 
bear  it.  It'll  break  her  heart." 

Well,  though  I  agreed  with  her,  I  still  thought  that 
something  could  be  done.  I  tried  to  do  it  when  Reggie 
got  back  that  night  after  Norah  had  gone  to  bed.  I 
couldn't  of  course  assume  that  he  had  his  idea.  My  plan 
was  to  present  Jevons  to  him  in  a  light  that  was  incom- 
patible with  his  idea.  It  was  easy  enough  to  say  that 
Jevons  might  be  rather  startling,  but  that  he  was  awfully 
decent  and  the  soul  of  honour.  The  soul  of  honour  cov- 
ered it — absolutely  ruled  out  his  idea. 

He  didn't  contradict  me.  He  just  sat  there  smoking 
amicably,  just  saying  every  now  and  then  that  he  couldn't 
stand  him;  he  was  sorry — I  might  be  perfectly  right  and 
Jevons  might  be  everything  I  said — only  he  couldn't  stand 
him ;  and  he  wasn't  going  to.  Nothing  would  induce  him 
to  stop  with  Jevons.  He  didn't  want  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  little  beast. 


178  THE  BELFRY 

When  I  said,  "I  assure  you,  my  dear  fellow,  it's  all 
right,"  he  only  threw  the  onus  of  suspicion  on  me  by  re- 
plying suavely,  "My  dear  fellow,  I  assure  you  I  never 
said  it  wasn't." 

It  was  as  if  he  really  knew  it  wasn't,  knew  something 
that  we  didn't  know,  and  was  determined  to  keep  his 
knowledge  to  himself. 

And  when  I'd  finished  he  said,  "The  whole  thing's  a 
mystery  to  me.  I  thought  she  was  going  to  marry  you." 
And  then — "How  she  can  stick  him  I  can't  think.  D'you 
mind,  old  man,  if  I  go  to  bed?  No,  I  don't  want  any 
whisky  and  soda,  thanks." 

It  was  Pavitt,  of  all  people,  who  threw  a  light  on  it  when 
he  brought  the  whisky. 

"Beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  said  Pavitt,  "but  I  believe  I 
never  told  you  that  the  Captain  called  here  one  day  when 
you  was  in  Belgium." 

"Are  you  quite  sure,  Pavitt?  He  called  the  day  I 
left." 

"Yes,  sir,  I  remember  'is  calling  the  day  you  left.  It's 
only  just  come  back  to  me  that  he  called  again,  three 
days  after,  I  think  it  was.  I  told  him  you  was  gone  to 
Belgium,  and  he  said  that  was  all  he  wanted.  He  didn't 
leave  no  message,  else  I  should  have  remembered.  It  was 
the  young  gentleman's  likeness  to  Mrs.  Jevons,  sir,  what 
fixed  him  in  my  mind." 

I  told  Reggie  this  the  next  day  as  an  instance  of  Pavitt's 
wonderful  memory.  "Only,"  I  said,  "he  forgot  to  tell  me 
that  you  called." 

He  smiled  rather  bitterly  as  if  he  remembered  the  inci- 
dent well. 

"Oh,  I  called  all  right,"  he  said.  "I  wanted  to  know 
where  you  were." 

After  that  Norah  and  I  made  it  out  between  us.    Not 


HER  BOOK  179 

all  at  once,  but  bit  by  bit,  as  things  occurred  to  us  or  as 
he  suggested  them. 

He  must  have  begun  to  suspect  something  when  the 
time  went  on  and  Viola  didn't  turn  up.  Only  he  thought 
it  was  I  who  was  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Perhaps,  so  long  as 
he  thought  it  was  I,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  there 
could  be  no  great  harm  in  it.  He  had  been  all  right  with 
her  down  at  Canterbury  those  last  few  days.  Anyhow,  he 
hadn't  said  anything. 

Then — when  he  heard  that  she  had  married  Jevons — 
he  had  his  idea.  It  wasn't  necessary  for  him  to  have 
heard  anything  else.  And  then,  even  if  he  hadn't  guessed 
it,  there  was  Jimmy's  book,  the  "Flemish  Journal,"  to 
tell  him  she  had  been  in  Belgium  with  him.  And  he  knew 
she  didn't  marry  him  till  afterwards. 

And  so,  he  thought  things.  If  he  didn't  think  them 
of  Viola  he  thought  them  of  Jevons.  (Even  on  the  most 
charitable  assumption  he  would  consider  his  sister's  pas- 
sion for  Jimmy  a  piece  of  morbid  perversity.)  And  any- 
how, he  was  left  with  an  appalling  doubt. 

And  he  wasn't  going  to  forgive  either  of  them,  ever. 


IX 

THAT  we  had  made  out  something  very  like  the  truth 
of  it  I  realized  when  I  met  Burton  Withers.  For  eventu- 
ally I  did  meet  him.  It  was  at  the  end  of  June,  nineteen- 
ten,  in  the  green  room  of  the  Crown  Theatre  on  the  hun- 
dredth night  of  Jimmy's  play.  That  is  what  I  remember 
it  by. 

ISTorah  and  I  were  with  Viola  and  Jimmy.  Withers  had 
come  in  with  a  friend,  an  important  member  of  the  cast, 
who  was  evidently  under  the  impression  that  we  had  never 
met  before,  for  he  introduced  him  to  us  all  round.  Withers 
showed  tact  in  not  recognizing  Viola  or  claiming  the  ac- 
quaintance he  certainly  had  with  Jevons.  He  had,  in  fact, 
a  most  reassuring  air  of  starting  again  with  a  clean  slate 
and  no  reminiscences.  This  was  in  the  interval  between 
the  First  and  Second  Acts.  When  the  curtain  rose  on 
Act  Two,  I  was  alone  in  Jimmy's  box.  (Jimmy  and 
Viola  and  ISTorah  were  trying  the  effect  of  the  play  from 
the  stalls.)  And  at  the  next  interval  Withers  came  to 
me  there.  It  was  funny,  he  said,  the  way  little  Jevons 
had  come  on.  He  didn't  suppose  any  of  us  had  thought 
of  this  four  years  ago  when  we  had  all  met  together  in 
Bruges. 

I  said,  "Did  we  all  meet  together  in  Bruges  ?" 

"Well,  if  it  wasn't  in  Ghent.  Oh — of  course  it  was  at 
Ghent  you  and  I  met.  You  hadn't  joined  the  others  then." 

At  first  I  was  hopelessly  mystified  by  these  allusions.  I 
couldn't  think  what  point  he  was  making  for  or  where  he 

1 80 


HER  BOOK  181 

would  come  out.  He  seemed  to  be  trying  uneasily  to  get 
somewhere.  Then  I  saw  that  he  had  had  it  on  his  mind 
that  when  we  had  last  met  he  had  made  a  defamatory 
statement  to  me  about  the  lady  who  had  become  my  sister- 
in-law,  and  about  a  man  who  had  become  a  celebrity  (I 
knew  Withers's  little  weakness  for  celebrities).  And  he 
was  scared. 

I  must  have  seemed  a  bit  lost  among  his  allusions,  for  he 
blurted  it  out. 

"D'you  know,  I've  been  most  awfully  sorry  for  chaffing 
you  in  that  idiotic  way — about — your  sister-in-law.  Silly 
sort  of  thing  one  says,  you  know.  But  of  course  you  knew 
I  was  pulling  your  leg." 

I  said,  "My  dear  Withers,  of  course  I  knew  you  were/' 

Of  course  I  knew  he  was  doing  nothing  of  the  sort,  for 
Withers  slandered  right  and  left  when  it  wasn't  worth  his 
while  to  grovel,  and  I  had  no  doubt  now  that  he  believed 
his  own  dirty  tale  when  he  told  it ;  but  he  had  been  im- 
pressed and  thoroughly  frightened,  even  at  the  time,  by 
the  calmness  of  my  bluff,  and  the  little  beast  was  far  more 
afraid  of  us  than  we  ever  could  have  been  of  him  now. 
We  could  henceforth  dismiss  Withers  from  our  minds.  He 
was  a  "social  climber"  of  the  sort  that  would  eat  his  own 
words  if  he  thought  they  would  do  the  smallest  damage 
to  his  climbing. 

As  for  the  ladies,  General  Thesiger's  friends,  I  rather 
think  the  General  had  settled  with  them  at  the  time. 

You  might  say  we  had  nothing  to  fear  from  Reggie,  if 
Reggie's  silence — and  his  deafness — hadn't  been  more  ter- 
rible than  anything  he  could  have  heard  or  said. 

I  suppose  nineteen-ten  ought  to  stand  as  the  year  of 
Tasker  Jevons's  great  Play,  the  play  that  ran  for  a  whole 
year  after  the  hundredth  night,  that  ran  on  and  on  as  if  it 
would  never  stop,  that,  when  it  was  taken  off  the  Crown 


182  THE  BELFRY 

stage  to  make  room  for  its  successor,  still  careered  through 
the  provinces  and  the  United  States.  It  seemed  the  year 
of  Jimmy's  utmost  affluence.  If  he  kept  it  up,  we  said, 
he'd  be  a  millionaire  before  he  died  of  it.  But  it  wasn't 
conceivable  that  he  could  keep  it  up  for  long.  We  thought 
he'd  never  write  another  play  like  this  one.  There  never 
would  be  another  year  like  nineteen-ten. 

I  believe  that  even  Jimmy  thought  there'd  never  be  an- 
other year  like  it,  so  far  had  he  surpassed  his  own  calcula- 
tions, as  it  was. 

But  for  me  nineteen-ten  is  the  year  of  other  things,  the 
things  that  happened  in  the  family,  the  year  of  Reggie's 
return  and  all  the  misery  that  came  from  it,  the  year  of 
Viola's  struggle — the  agony  of  which  we,  Norah  and  I, 
were  the  helpless  spectators.  She  never  said  a  word  to  us. 
It  was  Norah  who  conveyed  to  me  the  secret,  intimate 
shock  of  it. 

That  year  Jimmy  rained  boxes  and  stalls  and  theatre- 
parties  for  his  play  on  all  the  Thesigers  (except  Reggie) 
and  on  all  their  friends,  and  on  Dorothy  and  Gwinny  and 
their  husbands  when  they  came  back  from  Simla  and 
Gibraltar  (it  was  the  year  of  their  return  too)  ;  but  we 
stood  behind  the  scenes  of  a  tragedy  that  mercifully  was 
hidden  from  Jimmy's  eyes.  It  was  the  year  when  Mildred 
broke  off  her  engagement  to  Charlie  Thesiger.  It  was  the 
year  when  our  little  girl,  Viola,  was  born ;  the  year  when 
we  moved  from  our  Bloomsbury  flat  into  the  little  house 
in  Edwardes  Square,  taking  over  the  end  of  the  lease  and 
all  the  fixtures  and  some  of  the  furniture  from  Jimmy. 
Jimmy  hadn't  a  child,  and  he  had  sworn  that  he  never 
would  have  one;  he  was  so  afraid  (and  this  fear  was  the 
only  thing  that  disturbed  his  optimism),  so  horribly  afraid 
that  Viola  might  die.  But  he  had  outgrown  the  house  in 


HER  BOOK  183 

Edwardes  Square.  It  was  the  year  of  his  first  really 
startling  expansion. 

It  was  the  year  when  he  moved  into  the  house  in  May- 
fair. 

Why  Mayfair  we  really  couldn't  think.  He  said  he 
liked  the  sound  of  it ;  it  made  him  feel  as  if  he  was  in  the 
country  when  he  wasn't,  and  as  if  it  was  the  month  of 
May,  when  there  never  was  any  month  of  May  in  Eng- 
land ;  as  if  there  were  a  maypole  where  the  fountain  is  in 
Park  Lane;  and  as  if  processions,  and  processions  of 
horses,  splendid  stallions  and  brood-mares  and  thorough- 
breds and  hacks  and  great  Suffolk  punches  with  their 
manes  and  tails  tied  up  with  ribbons  were  coming  past 
his  house  to  the  fair. 

He  may  have  felt  like  that  about  it.  I  put  no  limits 
to  Jimmy's  imagination ;  but  I  suspected  him  of  throwing 
out  these  airy  fancies  as  a  veil  to  cover  the  preposterous 
nature  of  his  ambition. 

It  was  also  the  year  when  he  began  to  talk  about  motor- 
cars and  think  about  motor-cars  and  dream  about  motor- 
cars at  night. 

And  it  was  the  year  in  which  he  and  Viola  went  to  the 
Riviera  while  the  plumbers  and  painters  were  at  work  on 
the  house  in  Green  Street,  Mayfair.  They  stayed  away 
all  autumn,  and  at  the  end  of  November  they  settled  in. 
And  at  Christmas  they  gave  their  house-warming. 

It  wasn't  a  large  party — only  a  few  friends  of  Viola's, 
and  Jimmy's  lawyer  and  his  doctor  and  his  agent,  and  a 
few  picked  members  of  the  confraternity;  the  rest  were 
Thesigers.  If  Jimmy  had  meant  to  give  a  demonstration 
proving  that  he  could  gather  the  whole  of  his  wife's  fam- 
ily round  him  at  a  pinch,  he  had  all  but  succeeded.  I  sup- 
pose every  available  member  had  turned  up  that  night,  ex- 
cept Reggie.  The  General  and  his  wife  and  daughters 


184  THE  BELFRY 

were  there ;  and  Charlie  Thesiger  and  Bertie ;  and  Canon 
and  Mrs.  Thesiger  (they  had  come  up  from  Canterbury  on 
purpose,  and  were  staying  with  the  General)  ;  and  Doro- 
thy'and  Gwinny  and  their  husbands;  and  Victoria  and 
Mildred,  who  stayed  with  Viola ;  and  Millicent,  who  came 
to  us;  and  a  whole  crowd  of  miscellaneous  aunts  and 
cousins;  perhaps  sixty  altogether,  counting  outsiders. 

Norah  and  I  had  been  away  for  weeks  in  the  country 
and  had  only  got  back  that  afternoon,  so  we  had  not  seen 
the  house  in  Green  Street  since  it  had  been  furnished.  It 
burst,  it  literally  burst,  on  us,  without  the  smallest  warn- 
ing or  preparation. 

Like  Jimmy's  first  novel,  it  was  designed  to  startle  and 
arrest,  hitting  you  in  the  eye  as  you  came  in.  The  actual 
reception  was  held  in  the  large  hall,  which  had  been 
formed  by  turning  what  had  once  been  the  dining-room 
loose  into  the  passage  and  the  stair-place. 

So  far  the  architect  had  done  his  work  well.  After  that 
he  had  been  left  to  struggle  with  and  interpret  as  he  best 
could  the  baronial  idea  that  had  been  imposed  on  him. 
The  hall  was  panelled  half-way  in  dark  oak,  and  above  the 
oak  the  walls  were  hung  with  a  rough  papering  of  old  gold. 
But  what  hit  you  in  the  eye  as  you  came  in  was  the  oak 
staircase  that  went  up  royally  along  the  bottom  wall.  It 
had  scarlet-and-gold  Tudor  roses  on  the  flank  of  the  balus- 
trade, and  at  every  third  banister  there  was  a  shield  picked 
out  in  scarlet  and  gold.  And  at  the  bottom  of  the  balus- 
trade and  at  the  turn  a  little  oak  lion  sat  on  his  haunches 
and  held  up  yet  another  shield  (picked  out  in  scarlet  and 
gold)  in  his  fore-paws.  The  bare  oak  planks  of  the  upper 
floor  made  the  ceiling,  and  there  was  an  enormous  Tudor 
rose  in  the  middle  of  it,  where  other  people  might  have 
had  a  chandelier,  and  little  Tudor  roses  blazed  at  inter- 
vals all  along  the  cornice.  And  there  was  a  great  stone 


HER  BOOK  185 

hearth  and  chimney-piece,  a  Tudor  chimney-piece,  mul- 
lioned,  with  a  shield  carved  in  the  centre  and  the  motto: 
"Dominus  Defensor  Domi"  and  on  either  side  the  rose 
and  the  grill,  the  rose  and  the  grill,  alternately.  There 
were  andirons  on  the  hearth  and  an  immense  log  burning, 
and  swords  and  daggers  and  suits  of  armour  hung  on  the 
gold  walls  above  the  panelling. 

And  I  swear  to  you  that  the  curtains  and  upholstery 
were  in  tapestry  cloth,  the  lilies  of  France  in  gold  on  a 
crimson  ground.  It  was  as  if  Jimmy  had  wanted  to  say 
to  the  Thesigers  that  if  it  came  to  being  Tudor,  he  could 
be  as  Tudor  as  any  of  them,  and  more  so.  Thus  deeply 
had  he  absorbed  the  Canterbury  atmosphere. 

When  she  saw  the  suits  of  armour  Norah  squeezed  my 
arm  and  breathed  "Oh — my  darling  Wally!" — in  an 
ecstasy  that  was  anguish.  Poor  Mildred's  plump  face 
turned  as  scarlet  as  the  Tudor  roses  with  an  emotion  that 
we  could  not  fathom,  but  judged  to  be  painful. 

We  had  come  early  with  the  idea  of  making  ourselves 
useful,  if  necessary;  but  there  was  hardly  anybody  there 
yet,  only  two  or  three  guests  drinking  coffee  or  cham- 
pagne-cup at  the  long  table  under  the  windows,  and 
Jimmy,  who  stood  in  the  middle  of  his  Tudor  hall,  talking 
to  one  of  the  confraternity,  and  rocking  himself  gently 
from  his  toes  to  his  heels  and  from  his  heels  to  his  toes 
again,  as  a  sign  that  he  was  not  in  the  least  elated,  but 
only  at  his  ease. 

He  was  delighted  to  see  us,  and  for  quite  three  seconds 
he  ceased  his  rocking  and  began  to  twinkle  in  a  most  natu- 
ral and  reassuring  manner.  Then  I  remember  him 
scuttling  away  to  greet  another  guest,  and  the  confrere 
gazing  after  him  with  affection  and  turning  to  us  in  a  sort 
of  grave  enjoyment  of  the  scene.  I  remember  Viola  com- 
ing up  to  us  and  her  little  baffling  smile  and  her  look — the 


i86  THE  BELFRY 

look  she  was  to  have  for  long  enough — of  detachment  from 
Jimmy  and  his  Tudor  hall.  I  remember  the  dark  blue, 
half-transparent  gown  she  wore  that  was  certainly  not 
Tudor,  and  her  general  air  of  being  an  uninvited  and 
inappropriate  guest,  and  how  she  conveyed  us  to  the  table 
to  get  drinks  "all  comfy"  before  the  others  came.  And 
when  Viola  had  drifted  away,  I  remember  Charlie  Thesi- 
ger  strolling  up  to  us.  The  supercilious  youth  had  been 
getting  a  drink  "all  comfy"  on  his  own  account,  and  his 
little  stiff  moustache  was  still  wet  with  Jimmy's  cham- 
pagne-cup above  the  atrocious  smile  he  met  us  with. 

He  asked  us  if  we'd  seen  the  drawing-room. 

We  said  we  hadn't,  and  he  advised  us  to  go  up  and  look 
at  it  at  once,  before  anybody  else  did.  "You  can't  see  it 
properly,"  he  said,  "unless  you're  alone  with  it." 

I  suppose  we  ought  to  have  been  grateful  to  Charlie  for 
not  letting  us  miss  it,  and  it  was  perfectly  true  that  the 
way  to  see  it  was  to  be  alone  with  it ;  there  would,  indeed, 
have  been  a  positive  indecency  in  seeing  it  in  any  other 
way.  He  had  spared  our  decency.  And  yet  I  think  we 
hated  him  for  having  sent  us  there.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
sent  us  to  look  at  something  horrible,  at  an  outrage,  at  vio- 
lence done  to  shrinking,  delicate  things. 

We  looked  at  it,  and  we  looked  at  each  other.  We  didn't 
speak,  and  I  don't  think  either  of  us  smiled.  I  remember 
Norah  going  behind  me  and  closing  the  door  swiftly,  as 
she  might  have  closed  it  on  some  horror  that  she  and  I 
had  to  deal  with  alone.  I  remember  her  saying  then, 
"This  is  too  awful !"  not  in  the  least  as  if  she  meant  what 
we  were  looking  at,  but  as  if  she  saw  something  invisible 
that  lurked  and  loomed  behind  it,  so  that  I  asked  her  what 
she  thought  it  meant. 

"It  means,"  she  said,  "that  Jimmy's  done  it  all  him- 
self. He's  had  to  do  it  all  himself.  She  hasn't  cared" 


HER  BOOK  187 

I  said  it  looked  as  if  lie  hadn't  cared. 

She  moaned,  "Oh,  but  he  did — he  did.  He's  cared  so 
awfully.  That's  the  dreadful  part  of  it.  You  can  see  he 
has.  Just  look  at  those  vases  and  those  cabinets  and  things. 
And  think  of  the  money  the  poor  thing  must  have  spent 
on  it!" 

"But,"  I  said,  "it's  so  unlike  him.  His  taste  for  furni- 
ture's impeccable.  The  old  house  was  perfect.  So,  in  its 
way,  was  the  cottage." 

"I'm  afraid  that  wasn't  Jimmy's  taste — it  was  Vee- 
Vee's.  She  did  everything." 

"She  told  us  he  did." 

"Poor  darling — she  wanted  us  to  think  he  did." 

"He  appreciated  it,  anyhow." 

"He'd  appreciate  anything  if  she  did  it." 

"Then,"  I  said,  "why  should  he  break  loose  like  this 
now  ?" 

"Because  she  hasn't  cared.  She  hasn't  cared  a  hang. 
She's  left  everything  to  him.  And  you  can  see,  poor  dear, 
how  he's  spread  himself." 

Oh,  yes,  you  could  see.  It  was  as  if  he  had  never  had 
scope  before,  and  now,  with  no  limit  to  his  opportunity, 
he  had  simply  run  amok.  It  wasn't  that  the  things  he  had 
gathered  round  him  in  his  orgy  were  not  fine  things.  It 
was  the  awful  way  he'd  mixed  them,  yielding  incontinently 
to  each  solicitation  as  it  came  along.  Dealers  had  been 
on  the  look-out  for  Jimmy  to  exploit  his  fury. 

In  his  Tudor  hall  he  had  been  constrained  to  unity  by  a 
great  idea.  But  not  here.  And  reminiscences  of  the 
Canterbury  drawing-room  had  suggested  to  him  that  you 
could  mix  things.  So,  using  a  satinwood  suite  with  tinted 
marqueterie  and  old  rose  upholsterings  (he  had  succumbed 
to  it  in  the  first  freshness  of  his  innocence)  as  a  base,  he 
had  added  Boule  cabinets  and  modern  Indian  tables  in 


1 88  THE  BELFRY 

carved  open-work  to  Adams  cabinets  and  Renaissance 
tables  in  ebony  inlaid  with  engraved  ivory,  and  eighteenth- 
century  gilded  bergere  chairs  to  old  oak  and  Chippendale. 
Cloisonne  and  Sevres  stood  side  by  side  on  the  same  shelf. 
He  had  an  Aubusson  carpet  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and 
his  Bokhara  rugs  at  intervals  down  the  sides.  Norah  was 
sitting  on  the  emerald-green  brocade  of  an  Empire  sofa, 
clutching  the  gilt  sphinx  head  of  the  arm-end.  It  was  a 
double  room,  and  emerald-green  curtains  hung  at  the  tall 
windows  in  the  front  and  at  the  large  stained-glass  window 
at  the  back,  and  at  the  wide  archway  between.  And  an 
Algerian  lamp  swung  from  the  back  ceiling,  and  an  Early 
Victorian  glass  chandelier  from  the  front. 

"And  the  awfullest  thing  of  all  is,"  Norah  was  saying, 
"that  he's  done  it  to  please  her." 

"Don't  believe  her.    That's  the  beautiful  part  of  it." 

Viola  had  come  in  by  the  door  of  the  back  room  and 
she  was  smiling  at  us. 

Yet,  even  as  she  smiled,  she  had  that  look  of  being  de- 
tached, of  not  caring. 

We  couldn't  say  anything — we  were  too  miserable.  She 
looked  round  the  dreadful  rooms  as  if  she  were  trying  to 
see  them  for  the  first  time,  as  if  some  reverberation  of  the 
horror  we  had  felt  did  penetrate  to  her  in  her  remoteness. 
She  smiled  faintly. 

"What  does  it  matter,"  she  said,  "so  long  as  it  makes 
him  happy  ?  It  would  be  sweet  if  you'd  come  down  and 
help  us  now." 

We  went  down,  and  the  house-warming  began. 

It  was  Jimmy  who  told  us  what  our  business  was.  We 
were  to  stand  by  visitors,  he  said,  as  they  came  in  and 
break  the  shock  (he  had  observed  it)  of  the  Tudor  hall. 
If  we  couldn't  break  it  we  must  do  what  we  could  to  help 


HER  BOOK  189 

recovery.  He  had  seen  desperate  cases  yield  to  champagne- 
cup  administered  during  the  first  paroxysm. 

We  had  a  little  trouble  with  some  of  the  minor  confra- 
ternity— their  emotions  were  facile  and  champagne  in- 
tensified them.  They  would  ask  where  the  throne-room 
was  and  when  our  host  was  going  to  he  measured  for  his 
suit  of  armour,  and  what  did  we  think  he'd  done  with  the 
family  portraits? 

But  the  Thesigers  (all  except  Charlie — and  Charlie, 
Norah  said,  had  no  heart),  the  Thesigers  offered  an  ex- 
ample of  the  most  beautiful  manners.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  General's  face  as  the  suits  of  armour  struck  him — his 
sudden  spasm  of  joy  and  the  austere  heroism  that  sup- 
pressed it.  And  the  Canon 

The  Canon  rose  to  even  greater  heights.  We  were  a  bit 
afraid  that  he  would  overdo  it  and  look  as  if  he  were 
trying  to  show  us  how  a  Christian  gentleman  could  bear 
such  things  as  Jimmy's  furnishings.  But  no.  He  behaved 
as  though  he  saw  nothing  in  the  least  unusual  in  his  fur- 
nishings, as  though  Jimmy's  Tudor  hall  and  miscellaneous 
drawing-room  were  his  natural  background. 

But  for  sheer  pluck  and  presence  of  mind  not  one  of 
them  could  touch  Jevons.  He  rose,  he  soared,  he  poised 
himself,  he  turned  and  swept  above  them ;  you  could  feel 
the  tense  vibration  that  kept  him  there,  in  his  atmosphere 
of  deadly  peril.  He  vol-planed,  he  looped  the  loop.  His 
behaviour  was  unsurpassable.  For  his  case,  if  you  like, 
was  desperate.  I  tell  you  he  had  seen  the  effect  of  his 
Tudor  hall  and  drawing-room.  He  had  been  watching; 
and  nothing,  not  a  murmur,  or  a  furtive  snigger,  not  the 
quiver  of  an  eyelash,  had  escaped  him.  And  consider 
what  it  meant  to  him.  In  a  furious  climax  of  expenditure 
he  had  achieved  the  arresting  spectacle  of  his  house  in 
Mayfair,  and  his  first  night,  his  house-warming,  was 


190  THE  BELFRY 

turning  under  his  eyes  into  a  triumph  for  the  Thesigers' 
manners  and  a  failure  for  him.  He  had  no  illusions.  Un- 
less he  did  something  to  stop  it,  the  whole  thing  would  be 
one  enormous  and  lamentable  and  expensive  failure. 

He  had  to  do  something.  And  he  did  it.  He  left  off 
his  uneasy  swagger  and  his  rocking.  He  met  the  heroic 
and  beautiful  faces  of  the  Thesigers  with  his  engaging 
twinkle.  He  sought  out  and  ministered  to  two  young 
girls  who  had  been  brought  there  by  the  minor  confra- 
ternity and  were  hiding  in  a  corner  on  the  point  of  hys- 
teria. We  heard  him  telling  them  that  the  throne-room 
was  being  built  out  over  the  scullery  leads  (he  must  have 
known  what  the  minor  confraternity  had  been  up  to), 
that  in  the  great  fireplace  in  his  kitchen  you  could  roast 
three  journalists  whole,  and  that  the  question  of  the  fam- 
ily portraits  was  receiving  his  attention.  He  had  a  deal  on 
with  the  Trustees  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery  for  the 
purchase  of  the  Holbein  Henry  the  Eighth.  By  the  time 
he  had  finished  it  was  open  to  us  to  suppose  that  the  house 
in  Mayfair  was  his  joke  and  not  ours,  that  he  had  fur- 
nished it  in  this  preposterous  manner  in  order  to  be  really 
and  truly  funny,  and  to  keep  himself  and  Viola  in  perfect 
and  perpetual  gaiety.  It  was  as  if  he  were  trying  to  say 
to  us,  "ISTone  of  you  people — least  of  all  the  confraternity 
— knows  how  to  live.  Life  isn't  a  calamity;  it's  a  joke; 
and  to  live  properly  you  should  meet  life  in  its  own  spirit ; 
you  should  do  exuberant  and  gay  and  gorgeous  things,  like 
me." 

And  then  when  we  had  all  come  round,  he  rearranged 
all  the  furniture  in  his  drawing-room  for  charades  (show- 
ing no  respect  whatever  for  his  satinwood  suite)  ;  and  after 
the  charades  he  rolled  up  his  Aubusson  carpet  and  cleared 
the  place  for  a  dance  that  was  ruin  to  his  parquet  floor. 


HER  BOOK  191 

And  we  had  supper;  and  then  more  dancing  till  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Of  the  dancing  I  remember  nothing  but  Viola  whirling 
round  and  round,  as  it  were  for  ever,  in  Charlie  Thesiger's 
arms,  and  her  dead-white  face  looking  over  his  shoulder, 
as  if  she  saw  nothing,  nothing  whatever;  as  if  she  were 
detached  even  from  the  arms  that  held  her. 

My  last  recollection  is  of  Jimmy's  face  when  Nbrah  said 
to  him,  "Oh,  Jimmy,  I  love  your  dear  little  lions !" — and 
Jimmy's  answer: 

"Little  lions — yes — they  make  me  feel  tall  and  ma- 
jestic." 

"He  is  going  it,  isn't  he  ?"  said  Charlie  Thesiger. 

At  this  point,  when  I  look  back  over  what  I've  written, 
it  seems  to  me  that  I've  done  nothing  but  record  changes 
so  many  and  so  marked  that  their  history  has  no  sort  of 
continuity.  But  in  reality  it  was  not  so.  Up  to  Decem- 
ber, nineteen-ten,  there  was  no  break,  not  even  a  dividing 
line.  Compared  with  what  happened  then  I  am  compelled 
to  think  of  Viola's  marriage,  not  as  a  risky  experiment 
that  had  so  far  defeated  prophecy,  but  as  an  entirely  serene 
and  happy  thing.  Between  the  moment  when  they  set 
up  that  four-post  bed  in  that  absurd  little  house  in  Hamp- 
stead  and  the  day  of  their  leaving  Edwardes  Square  be- 
hind them  I  cannot  point  to  any  time  and  say,  "That  was 
the  beginning  of  it,"  or  put  my  finger  on  an  event  and 
show  the  difference  there. 

Unless  it  was  Reggie's  coming  back. 

But  the  results  of  that  didn't  appear  till  later. 

Any  difference  I  may  have  noted  previously  was  an 
affair  of  shades,  of  delicate  oscillations.  There  was  no 
lapse  without  a  recovery,  no  departure  without  a  return. 

And  here,  at  the  end  of  nineteen-ten,  I  got  a  line  drawn 


192  THE  BELFRY 

sharply  on  either  side  of  a  break  I  cannot  bridge.  The 
minute  Jimmy  moved  into  that  house  in  Mayfair  things 
began  to  go  wrong. 

It  was  as  if  Jimmy,  in  his  love  of  doing  risky  things, 
had  cast,  this  time,  a  dreadful  die. 

From  that  evening  onward  I  watched  them  with  anxiety. 
I  do  not  know  how  far  Jevons  was  aware  that  the  house  in 
Mayfair  was  a  blunder;  I  think  he  wouldn't  have  ac- 
knowledged that  it  was  a  blunder  at  all.  His  own  atti- 
tude to  it  was  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  his  humorous 
perception  of  other  people's.  With  his  dexterity  in  ad- 
justments he  was  quite  capable  of  reconciling  them,  quite 
capable  of  enjoying  the  effect  it  had  on  nervous  organisms 
while  he  himself  took  it  seriously.  It  was,  after  all,  his 
own  achievement,  and  a  very  astonishing  achievement  too. 
He  continued  to  respect  it  as  the  immense  sign  of  his  ma- 
terial prosperity,  the  advertisement,  you  may  say,  of  his 
arrival.  His  business  instinct  would  never  have  allowed 
him  to  repent  of  an  advertisement. 

There  was  this  gross  element  in  his  enjoyment. 

And  there  was  also  the  pure  and  charming  happiness  of 
a  child  that  suddenly  finds  itself  left,  with  boundless  op- 
portunity, to  its  own  gorgeous  caprice.  You  could  no 
more  blame  Jevons  for  the  bad  taste  of  his  drawing-room 
and  his  Tudor  hall  than  you  could  blame  a  child  for  its 
joy  in  a  treasure  of  tinsel  and  coloured  glass. 

But  when  we  asked  ourselves  where,  in  this  outbreak  of 
Jimmy's  fantasy,  did  Viola  come  in,  we  had  to  own  that 
she  came  in  nowhere.  Not  only  had  she  stood  by  without 
lifting  a  finger  to  interfere  with  its  tempestuous  course; 
not  only  had  she  submitted  without  a  protest ;  she  seemed 
to  show  no  adequate  sense  of  what  had  happened.  Her 
detachment  was  the  unnatural  and  dreadful  thing. 

And  this  happiness  of  his  was  at  Viola's  mercy.     It 


HER  BOOK  193 

would  last  just  so  long  as  she  could  keep  him  from  know- 
ing that  he  had  outraged  the  beauty,  the  fitness  and  the 
simplicity  she  loved.  I  thought  how  he  had  once  boasted 
that  he  knew  what  she  wanted,  that  he  knew  what  she  was 
thinking  and  feeling  all  the  time.  How  could  he  have 
imagined  that  she  wanted  this?  What  was  his  knowledge 
worth  if  he  didn't  know  what  she  would  think  and  feel 
about  it  ? 

Unless,  indeed,  she  had  lied  to  him.  Lied  from  first  to 
last,  deliberately  and  consummately,  over  each  separate 
thing  and  over  all  the  pretentious  silliness  and  waste  of  it. 
Norah  declared  that  it  was  so,  and  it  looked  like  it.  And 
more  than  anything  it  showed  where  my  poor  Viola  had 
got  to.  It  was  so  unlike  her  to  lie,  so  unlike  her  to  stand 
aside,  where  you  would  have  thought  she  would  have  most 
wanted  to  plunge  in ;  the  calculation  and  the  indifference 
both  were  so  beyond  her  that  you  could  only  think  one 
thing :  she  hated  it ;  she  hated  the  new  turn  his  prosperity 
had  taken;  she  almost  hated  him  because  of  it;  and  her 
heart  was  broken  because  of  Reggie,  and  it  was  hardening 
where  it  broke ;  she  hated  Reggie  at  moments ;  and  she  had 
moments  of  hating  Jevons  because  he  had  come  between 
them ;  and  she  was  compounding  with  her  conscience,  pun- 
ishing herself  for  all  these  hatreds  and  for  a  thousand 
secret  criticisms  and  disloyalties  and  repugnances;  aveng- 
ing, as  it  were  beforehand,  all  hatreds  and  criticisms,  dis- 
loyalties and  repugnances  to  come.  For  she  saw  it  all  now 
— how  it  was  going  to  be.  And  she  was  trying  to  make  up 
for  it  by  giving  Jimmy  his  own  way  in  the  things  that, 
as  she  had  said,  "didn't  matter." 

And  if  Jimmy's  way  was  to  surround  her  with  preten- 
tious silliness  instead  of  beautiful  simplicity,  then  she 
must  rise  above  her  surroundings.  Her  spirit,  at  any  rate, 
must  refuse  to  be  surrounded. 


194  THE  BELFRY 

Her  attitude  was  more  lofty  than  you  can  imagine. 
As  Norah  had  said,  there  would  always  be  a  Belfry — 
something  high  and  unusual — in  Viola's  life.  Well,  she 
was  going  to  live  in  the  Belfry,  that  was  all.  And  if  she 
was  to  be  perfectly  safe  in  her  Belfry,  and  Jimmy  per- 
fectly happy  in  his  Tudor  hall,  he  mustn't  know  that  she 
was  there. 

I  don't  know  how  she  really  put  it  to  herself;  I  don't 
suppose  she  "put"  it  any  way ;  but  subconsciously,  as  they 
say,  it  must  have  been  like  that.  Anyhow,  her  behaviour 
amounted  to  an  evasion  of  Jimmy,  and  this  particular 
evasion  was  sad  enough  when  you  consider  that  in  the  be- 
ginning it  had  been  Jimmy  who  had  taken  her  to  look  at 
the  Belfry — who  was  the  one  man  who  could  be  trusted  to 
take  her,  and  that  she  would  never  have  dreamed  of  setting 
off  on  such  an  adventure  by  herself,  and  that  she  wasn't 
fitted  for  it.  In  fact,  I  can't  think  of  anybody  less  fit. 

It  showed  more  than  anything  how  the  glamour  must 
have  worn  off  him. 

It  had  worn  off  even  for  us  to  whom  he  came  each  time 
with  a  comparative  freshness.  And  if  it  hadn't  worn  off 
for  his  public  and  for  the  confraternity,  it  was  simply  be- 
cause as  an  engineer  of  literature  he  was  inexhaustible. 
He  had  so  perfected  his  machinery  that  the  turning  out 
of  novels  and  of  plays  had  become  with  him  a  sort  of 
automatic  habit,  and  if  there  was  any  falling  off  in  his 
quality  he  was  right  when  he  said  that  nobody  but  him- 
self would  find  it  out.  He  had  got  an  infinite  capacity 
for  plagiarizing  himself;  and  in  his  worst  things  he  imi- 
tated his  best  so  closely  that  he  might  well  defy  you  to 
tell  the  difference. 

But  you  cannot  work  as  he  had  worked  for  five  years 
at  a  stretch  and  not  suffer  for  it.  And  you  cannot  aim 
at  material  success  as  he  had  aimed,  deliberately  and  con- 


HER  BOOK  195 

tinuously,  for  five  years  without  becoming  yourself  a  bit 
material.  And  you  cannot  be  immersed  and  wallow  in  it 
as  he  wallowed  without  corruption. 

There's  no  doubt  that  for  the  next  two — three — four 
years  he  wallowed.  He  was  so  deep  in  that,  even  after 
Viola's  illness  that  came  in  nineteen-thirteen  and  purged 
him  somewhat,  he  continued  to  wallow.  And  we  had 
to  stand  by  while  he  was  doing  it  and  pretend  that  we 
weren't  shocked.  There  was  no  good  trying  to  give  him 
a  hand  to  help  him  out,  he  was  so  happy  wallowing. 

I  am  far  from  blaming  him.  Personally,  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  Viola,  I  should  have  liked  to  think  that  he  was 
able  to  get  all  that  ecstasy  out  of  his  sordid  triumph. 
For  it  was  sordid.  If  it  wasn't  for  Viola  you  could  tick 
off  each  year  with  a  note  of  his  preposterously  increasing 
income,  and  say  that  was  all  there  was  in  it. 

I  muddle  up  the  first  years  of  it.  I  know  that  in 
nineteen-eleven  he  brought  out  his  fifth  novel  and  his  third 
play  and  that  the  run  and  the  returns  of  both  were 
astounding,  even  for  him.  I  know  that  in  nineteen-twelve 
he  brought  out  two  novels  and  two  new  plays  that  ran  at 
the  same  time,  and  that  he  roped  in  Europe  and  the 
Colonies ;  and  that  his  income  rose  into  five  figures.  He 
couldn't  help  it.  His  business  was  a  thing  that  had  passed 
beyond  his  control.  With  infinite  exertions  he  had  set  it 
spinning,  and  now  it  looked  as  if  he  had  only  to  touch  it 
now  and  then  with  his  finger  to  keep  it  going.  And  if  he 
did  get  a  bit  excited  is  it  any  wonder?  There  was  the 
dreadful  fascination  of  the  thing  that  compelled  him  to 
watch  it  till  its  perpetual  gyrations  went  to  his  head  and 
made  it  reel. 

His  figure  seems  to  me  to  reel  slightly  as  it  moves 
through  those  rooms  in  the  house  in  Green  Street,  and 
before  the  footlights  as  he  answered  calls,  and  across 


i96  THE  BELFRY 

the  banquet-halls  of  the  "Bitz"  or  the  "Criterion"  or  the 
"Savoy,"  when — about  three  times  a  year — he  celebrated 
his  triumphs.  I  see  those  years  as  a  succession  of  ban- 
quets running  indistinguishably  into  each  other.  I  see 
him  buying  more  and  more  furniture  and  superintending 
its  disposal  with  excitement.  He  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  always  buying  things.  I've  forgotten  most  of  them 
except  the  things  he  bought  for  Viola — the  jewellery  that 
frightened  her,  the  opera  cloak  that  made  her  hysterical, 
the  furs  that  had  to  be  sent  back  again  (you'd  have 
thought  he  couldn't  have  gone  wrong  with  furs,  but  he 
did),  and  the  hats  that  even  Jimmy  owned  it  was  impos- 
sible to  wear.  I  can  see  his  face  saddened  by  these  failures 
and  a  little  puzzled,  as  if  he  couldn't  conceive  how  his 
star  should  have  gone  back  on  him  like  that.  I  can  see 
him,  and  I  can  see  Viola,  kneeling  on  the  floor  in  his  study 
and  packing  some  beastly  thing  up  in  paper,  tenderly,  as 
if  it  had  been  the  corpse  of  a  beloved  hope;  and  I  can 
hear  him  saying  (it  was  after  the  opera  cloak  and  the 
hysterics),  "Walter,  you  can  monkey  with  a  woman's  'eart, 
and  you  can  ruin  her  immortal  soul,  but  if  you  meddle 
with  her  clothes  it's  hell  for  both  of  you.  Don't  you  do  it, 
my  boy." 

I  remember  scores  of  little  things  like  that,  things  done 
and  things  said  with  an  incorruptible  sweetness  and  affec- 
tion, but  things  accentuated  with  lapsed  aitches  and  with 
gestures  that  only  Jimmy  was  unaware  of.  Those  years 
are  marked  for  me  more  than  anything  by  the  awful  in- 
crease in  his  solecisms.  Their  number,  their  enormity 
and  frequency  rose  with  his  income,  and  for  the  best  of 
reasons.  It  was  as  if,  his  object  being  gained,  he  could 
afford  them.  He  was  no  longer  on  his  guard.  He  had 
no  longer  any  need  to  be.  The  strain  was  over — he 
relaxed,  and  in  relaxation  he  fell  back  into  his  old  habits. 


HER  BOOK  197 

All  those  years  we  seem  to  have  been  looking  on  at  the 
slow,  slow  process  of  his  vulgarization.  By  nineteen- 
twelve  the  confraternity  had  begun  to  regard  Tasker 
Jevons  as  an  outrageous  joke.  And  in  nineteen-thirteen, 
when  both  his  plays  were  still  running,  even  his  father-in- 
law  said  that  he  was  a  disgusting  spectacle.  And  Reggie 
(he  was  Major  Thesiger  now,  with  a  garrison  appoint- 
ment at  Woolwich)  Reggie  kept  as  far  away  from  him 
as  ever. 

Sometimes  I  have  thought  that  Viola's  detachment 
helped  his  undoing.  She  wasn't  there  to  pull  him  up  or 
to  cover  his  disasters ;  she  had  more  and  more  the  look  of 
not  being  there  at  all. 

And  Charlie  Thesiger  was  always  there.  There  with 
a  most  decided  look  of  being  up  to  something. 

Jevons  didn't  seem  to  mind  him.  You  might  have  said 
that  Charlie  was  another  of  the  risks  he  took. 


IN  nineteen-thirteen  Jimmy  bought  a  motor-car. 

He  was  more  excited  about  his  motor-car  than  he  had 
been  about  his  house — any  of  his  houses.  Even  Viola 
was  interested  and  came  rushing  down  from  her  Belfry 
when  it  arrived. 

He  bought  it  at  the  end  of  January.  A  good,  useful 
car  that  would  shut  or  open  and  serve  for  town  or  country. 
But  it  was  no  good  to  them  till  April. 

For  all  February  and  March  Viola  was  ill.  She  had 
been  running  down  gradually  for  about  two  years,  getting 
a  little  whiter  and  a  little  slenderer  every  month,  and  in 
the  first  week  of  February  she  got  influenza  and  ignored 
it,  and  went  out  for  a  drive  in  the  motor-car  with  a  tem- 
perature of  a  hundred  and  four. 

Mneteen-thirteen  stands  out  for  me  as  the  year  of 
Viola's  illness. 

It  turned  to  pneumonia  and  she  was  dangerously  ill 
for  three  weeks,  in  fact,  she  nearly  died  of  it;  and  for 
more  weeks  than  I  can  remember  she  lay  about  on  sofas 
to  which  Jimmy  and  the  nurse  or  one  of  us  carried  her 
from  her  bed.  And  in  all  that  time  Jimmy  nursed  and 
waited  on  her  and  sat  up  with  her  at  night.  If  he  slept 
it  was  with  one  eye  and  both  ears  open.  And  I  never 
saw  anybody  as  gentle  as  he  was  and  as  skilful  with  his 
hands  and  quiet.  He  didn't  even  breathe  hard.  And 
when  she  was  convalescent  and  a  little  fretful  and  trouble- 
some there  wasn't  anybody  else  who  could  manage  her. 

198 


HER  BOOK  199 

The  nurses  would  call  him  to  feed  her  and  give  her  her 
medicine  and  lift  her.  She  couldn't  bear  anybody  else 
to  touch  her. 

I  remember  one  day  when  she  had  been  moved  from 
her  bed  to  the  couch  for  the  first  time  and  she  was  so 
weak,  poor  darling,  that  she  cried.  I  remember  her  say- 
ing, "Jimmy,  if  you'll  only  put  your  hands  on  my  fore- 
head and  keep  them  there." 

I  think  he  must  have  sat  for  hours  with  his  hands  on 
her  forehead. 

I  doubt  if  he  was  ever  away  from  her  for  more  than  a 
few  minutes  except  when  one  of  us  came  and  dragged  him 
out  for  a  walk  in  the  Park  against  his  will.  It  was  always 
for  a  walk  in  the  Park — the  same  walk,  through  Stanhope 
Gate  to  the  end  of  the  Serpentine  and  back  again,  so  that 
he  could  time  it  to  a  minute.  He  wouldn't  look  at  his 
motor-car.  I  think  he  hated  it.  Anyhow,  I  know  he  lent 
it  to  us  until  she  was  well  enough  to  go  out  in  it  again. 

She  wasn't  well  enough  till  April.  She  never  would 
have  been  well  enough,  she  never  would  have  been  with 
us  at  all,  the  doctors  and  the  nurses  said,  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  Jimmy.  He  swore  that  they  were  fools  when  they 
gave  her  up  and  said  she  couldn't  live.  He  said  he'd 
make  her  live.  And  I  believe  he  made  her. 

He  gave  her  till  April  to  get  well  in;  and  when  April 
came  she  did  get  well.  And  he  took  her  away  to  the 
South  of  France,  and  to  Switzerland  when  the  months 
grew  warmer  (the  doctor  told  him  it  was  a  risk,  but  he 
said  he'd  take  it)  ;  he  took  her  in  the  motor-car,  and  he 
brought  her  back  in  June,  still  slender  but  recovered. 

That  illness  of  hers  saved  them  for  the  time.  It  rein- 
stated him.  It  improved  him.  He  couldn't,  you  see,  be 
devoted  and  vulgar  at  the  same  time.  All  lighter  agita- 
tions and  excitements  might  be  dangerous  to  Jevons,  but 


200  THE  BELFRY 

passion  and  great  grief  and  grave  anxiety  ennobled  him. 
He  came  back  from  Switzerland  chastened  and  purified 
of  all  offence.  Even  Reggie  couldn't  have  found  a  flaw 
in  him. 

That  had  always  been  Jevons's  way.  Just  when  you 
had  made  up  your  mind  that  you  couldn't  bear  him  he 
would  go  and  do  something  so  beautiful  that  it  made  your 
heart  ache.  From  the  very  fact  that  he  was  intolerable 
to-day  you  might  be  sure  he'd  be  adorable  to-morrow. 

And  when  we  saw  him  the  night  he  brought  Viola  home, 
moving  quietly  about  the  house,  giving  orders  in  that 
gentle  voice  that  he  had  in  reserve,  we  thought,  Really,  it 
will  be  all  right  now.  Viola's  passion  for  him  had  been 
near  death  so  many  times,  and  each  time  he  had  saved  it. 

We  hadn't  allowed  for  the  reaction — he  was  bound  to 
feel  it  after  three  months'  unnatural  repression ;  we  hadn't 
allowed  for  the  reaction  that  Viola  was  bound  to  feel  after 
three  years'  unnatural  detachment ;  we  hadn't  allowed  for 
the  state  of  her  nerves  after  her  illness;  there  were  all 
sorts  of  things  we  hadn't  allowed  for,  and  they  all  came 
at  once ;  they  burst  out  from  under  their  covers  one  evening 
in  June  when  Norah  and  I  were  dining  in  Green  Street. 

It  was  one  of  Jimmy's  gestures  that  began  it.  Viola 
had  never  been  able  to  control  his  gestures;  she  had 
never  been  able  to  get  used  to  them ;  and  there  were  two 
in  particular  that  made  her  wince  still  as  she  had  winced 
in  the  beginning.  She  had  contracted  the  habit  of  wincing 
in  response  to  them.  Whenever  Jimmy  jerked  his  thumb 
over  his  shoulder  you  saw  her  blink;  and  whenever  he 
cracked  his  knuckles  she  shrank  back.  The  blink  followed 
the  jerk,  and  the  shrinking  followed  the  cracking  as  the 
flash  follows  the  snap  of  the  trigger. 

I  have  never  known  Jimmy  jerk  as  he  jerked  that 
evening.  When  ISTorah  had  no  salad,  when  my  glass  was 


HER  BOOK  201 

empty,  when  Viola  wanted  more  potatoes,  when  he  wanted 
more  potatoes  himself,  Jimmy  jerked  his  thumb.  The 
butler  seemed  to  have  made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  ac- 
knowledge no  other  signal.  And  every  time  it  happened 
I  noticed  the  increasing  violence  of  Viola's  reaction. 
What  had  once  been  a  gentle  flicker  of  the  eyelashes  was 
now  a  succession  of  spasms  that  left  her  eyebrows  twisted. 

And  at  the  fifth  jerk  she  covered  her  eyes  with  her 
hands  and  cried  out,  "Jimmy,  if  you  do  that  once  more 
I  shall  scream." 

Poor  Jimmy  asked  innocently,  "What  did  I  do  ?" 

"You  jerked  your  thumb.  You  jerked  it  five  times,  and 
I  simply  cannot  bear  it." 

"All  right — all  right,"  said  Jimmy.  "I  needn't  jerk 
it  again.  It's  quite  easy  not  to." 

"I  was  afraid  it  wasn't,"  she  sighed. 

I  was  thinking,  "Whatever  will  she  do  if  he  cracks  his 
knuckles  ?"  and  that  very  minute  he  cracked  them.  The 
butler,  demoralized  by  Jimmy's  methods,  had  gone  out  of 
the  room  just  when  he  was  wanted.  That  annoyed  Jimmy. 
I  have  never  known  him  produce  such  a  detonation. 

Viola  started  as  if  he  had  hit  her.  But  she  said  nothing 
this  time. 

Jimmy  didn't  see  her.  He  was  looking  over  his  shoul- 
der to  see  whether  the  butler  was  or  was  not  answering 
his  summons.  And  then — I  think  that  at  one  period  of 
his  life  he  must  have  been  a  little  proud  of  his  accom- 
plishment— he  did  it  again.  He  did  it  crescendo,  for- 
tissimo, prestissimo,  strdbato  and  con  molto  expressions; 
he  played  on  his  knuckles  with  a  virtuosity  of  which  I 
have  never  seen  the  like. 

The  sheer  technique  of  the  performance  ought  to  have 
disarmed  her.  (It  enchanted  Norah.  But  then  Norah 
hadn't  had  an  illness.)  She  flung  a  wild  look  round  the 


202  THE  BELFRY 

room  as  if  she  called  on  treacherous  heavenly  powers  to 
save  her,  then  rose  and  very  slowly,  in  silence  and  a 
matchless  dignity,  she  walked  out,  past  me,  past  Jimmy, 
past  the  returning  butler,  and  down  the  passage  and  into 
the  Tudor  hall. 

"Well — I  am  blowed,"  said  Jevons. 

Norah  put  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"You  were  wonderful,  Jimmy  dear,"  she  said.  "I 
could  have  listened  to  you  for  ever.  So  could  Walter. 
But  then,  we  haven't  any  nerves." 

"After  all,"  said  Jimmy,  "what  did  I  do?" 

I  said,  "You  made  a  most  infernal  noise,  old  chap, 
you  know." 

"I  say!    Come " 

We  had  heard  the  andirons  go  down  with  a  clatter. 

That  was  how  we  knew  she  was  in  the  Tudor  hall. 

He  found  her  there  when  he  trotted  out  and  took  her 
some  wine  and  a  peach.  He  came  back  almost  instantly. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  said.    "She's  eating  it." 

But  it  was  very  far  from  all  right. 

All  the  prisoned  storms  and  the  secret  agonies  of  years 
were  loose  that  night,  and  they  had  their  way  with  her. 

We  found  her  dreadfully  calm  when  we  got  back  to 
her.  She  had  peeled  her  peach  and  eaten  it,  and  she 
had  drunk  her  wine,  and  she  was  sitting  by  the  great 
hearth  where  she  had  kicked  down  the  andirons ;  she  was 
sitting,  I  remember,  on  one  of  the  Tudor  chairs  with  the 
carved  backs  and  the  tapestry — the  lilies  of  France  in 
gold  on  a  crimson  ground — sitting  very  upright,  in  her 
beautiful  trailing  gown  that  curled  round  her  feet;  and 
she  was  a  little  flushed  (but  that  may  have  been  the 
wine). 

Jimmy  went  and  stood  next  her  in  front  of  his  hearth, 
with  his  hands  in  his  trouser  pockets — I  mean  with  his 


HER  BOOK  203 

thumbs  in  his  waistcoat  pockets,  where  he  seemed  to 
have  put  them  to  keep  them  out  of  mischief;  and  he 
twinkled  as  if  he  were  still  thinking  of  the  andirons.  And 
every  now  and  then  he  glanced  at  his  wife  sideways  out 
of  his  brilliant  sapphire  eyes,  without  moving  his  head  a 
hair's-breadth. 

And  none  of  us  said  anything. 

Then  Jimmy  rang  for  coffee,  and  that  started  her. 

She  said,  "Are  you  going  to  do  any  work  to-night  ?" 

"No,"  said  Jimmy,  "I  don't  think  so.     Why?" 

"Because,  if  you  don't  want  your  study  I'll  sit  in  it." 

"All  right."  He  said  it  vaguely.  But  he  must  have 
suspected  something  was  up,  for  he  turned  his  head  round 
and  looked  at  her  straight ;  and  again  he  said,  "Why  ?" 

"Because,"  she  said,  "it's  the  only  tolerable  room  in  the 
house." 

He  flushed  faintly  at  this.  "You  mean,"  he  said,  "it's 
the  only  one  I  didn't  bother  about?" 

"I  said  it  was  the  only  tolerable  one." 

"I  see."  His  flush  went  deep,  and  his  mouth  closed 
over  his  teeth. 

There  was  no  doubt  he  saw. 

She  had  hurt  him  badly.  It  was  quite  a  minute  before 
he  spoke  again,  and  when  he  did  speak  you  felt  that  he 
had  yielded,  in  spite  of  himself,  to  an  overpowering  curi- 
osity. He  must — he  seemed  to  be  saying  to  himself — sift 
this  mystery  to  the  bottom. 

"D'you  mean,"  he  said,  "that  this  room  doesn't — er — 
appeal  to  you  ?  What's  wrong  with  it  ?" 

"There's  nothing  wrong  with  it,"  she  said,  "if  you 
like  it." 

"Never  mind  whether  I  like  it  or  not.  It's  detestable. 
And  the  drawing-room?" 


204  THE  BELFRY 

She  did  not  answer.  I  think  she  was  ashamed  of 
herself. 

"Even  more  so,  I  suppose.    And — your  boudoir  ?" 

(I've  forgotten  the  boudoir.  She  hardly  ever  let  any 
of  us  go  into  it.  It  was  pretty  awful.) 

"I  do  wish/'  she  said,  "you'd  leave  me  alone.  What 
does  it  matter?" 

"Your  boudoir,"  he  went  on,  as  if  she  hadn't  said  any- 
thing, "is,  if  possible,  more  detestable  than  the  drawing- 
room." 

"I  never  said  so." 

"Precisely.  That's  my  grievance.  Why,  in  Heaven's 
name,  didn't  you  say  so?  Why  did  you  tell  me  that 
you  liked  all  these  abominations  ?" 

"Because  they  didn't  matter." 

"Why  lie  about  them  if  they  didn't  matter?" 

"I  mean  they  didn't  matter  to  me.    They  don't." 

"My  dear  child,  what  on  earth  do  you  suppose  they 
matter  to  me  ?  What  made  you  think  they  mattered  ?" 

"The  way  you  went  on  about  them." 

"Oh — the  way  I  go  on — Well,  if  that  matters " 

She  rose.  I  think  she  had  heard  the  tinkle  of  the  coSee- 
cups  in  the  corridor  and  wanted  to  put  an  end  to  what  in 
any  hands  but  Jimmy's  would  have  been  an  unseemly 
altercation. 

"Will  it  matter  if  we  go  upstairs  ?" 

"No.  Not  a  bit."  He  snapped  and  twinkled  at  the 
same  time. 

She  went,  and  Norah  followed  her. 

Jevons  settled  himself  in  an  armchair.  I  saw  how  un- 
perturbed and  deliberate  he  was  as  he  took  his  coffee  from 
the  tray,  and  with  what  an  incorrigible  air  he  jerked  his 
thumb  towards  the  staircase.  I  can  still  hear  him  call 
up  the  staircase  in  a  magisterial  voice,  "The  ladies  are 


HER  BOOK  205 

in  the  study,  Parker."  When  we  were  alone  he  fell  into 
meditation. 

It  was  apparently  as  the  result  of  meditation  that  he 
said,  "I  suppose  it  is  a  bit  crude,  if  you  come  to  think  of 
it.  Only  why  couldn't  she  say  so  at  the  time?" 

I  said  I  supposed  she  was  afraid  of  hurting  his  feelings. 

"My  feelings  ?  How  could  I  have  any  feelings  about  a 
blanketty  drawing-room  suite  ?  Does  she  really  think  I'm 
such  a  fool  that  I  can't  live  without  lions  on  my  staircase  ? 
I  stuck  the  beastly  things  there  because  I  thought  she'd 
like  'em.  If  I  thought  she'd  like  a  tame  rhinoceros  in 
her  boudoir  I'd  have  got  her  one,  if  I'd  'ad  to  go  out  and 
catch  'im  and  train  'im  myself.  If  I  thought  now  that  the 
only  way  to  preserve  her  affection  was  to  wear  that  suit 
of  armour  every  night  at  dinner  I'd  wear  it  and  glory  in 
wearing  it.  There  isn't  any  damned  silly  thing  I  wouldn't 
do  and  glory  in." 

And  then — "Her  nerves  must  be  in  an  awful  state." 

He  meditated  again. 

"Tell  you  what — I'll  get  rid  of  this  place.  I'll  let  it 
go  furnished  for  what  it'll  fetch.  I'll  only  keep  the  things 
we  had  before — the  things  she  liked.  They  are  prettier." 

He  looked  round  him  with  his  disenchanted  eyes. 

"I  can  see  it's  all  wrong,  this  sort  of  thing.  It's  in  bad 
taste.  Rotten  bad  taste.  I  suppose  I  must  have  been  a 
bit  excited  about  it  at  the  time — I  must  have  thought  it 
was  all  right  or  I  couldn't  have  stood  it. 

"It's  a  phase  I've  gone  through. 

"I  can  understand  perfectly  well  how  she  feels  about  it. 

"Fact  is,  I  hate  the  place  myself — the  whole  beastly 
house  I  hate.  I've  hated  it  ever  since  she  was  ill  in  it. 
I  can't  get  away  from  her  illness.  I  shall  always  see  her 
ill.  She'll  be  ill  again  if  we  go  on  living  in  it. 


206  THE  BELFRY 

"I'm  tired  of  the  whole  business — I'll  let  it  to-morrow 
and  take  a  house  in  the  country. 

"You  might  go  upstairs,  old  man,  and  see  what  she' a 
doing." 

I  went  upstairs. 

She  was  sitting  in  one  corner  of  the  study  with  a  book 
in  her  hand  pretending  to  read.  Norah  was  sitting  in 
another  corner  with  a  book  in  her  hand,  pretending  to 
read.  I  gathered  that  Norah  had  been  talking  to  her 
sister.  I  took  up  a  book  and  pretended  to  read  too. 

Presently,  when  she  thought  we  were  absorbed,  Viola 
got  up  and  left  us.  Norah  waited  till  the  door  had  closed 
on  her.  Then  she  spoke. 

"Wally — it's  more  awful  than  we've  ever  imagined.  I 
don't  think  she'll  be  able  to  stand  it  much  longer." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "she  won't  have  to  stand  it  much 
longer.  He's  going  to  chuck  the  place.  It's  got  on  his 
nerves,  too.  He  understands  exactly  how  she  feels 
about  it." 

"Let's  hope  he  doesn't  understand  how  she  feels 
about It  isn't  the  place,  Wally." 

"What  is  it,  then?" 

"I'm  most  awfully  afraid  it's  Jimmy." 

"Jimmy?  You  don't  mean  she  doesn't  care  about 
him?" 

"Oh,  no,  she  cares  about  him,  and  it's  because  she  cares 
so  that  she  can't  stand  him." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "whether  she  cares  or  not,  it's  rough 
on  Jimmy." 

"It's  rough  on  her.  It's  rough  on  both  of  them.  It's 
getting  rougher  and  rougher,  and  it's  wearing  her  out." 

"Won't  it  wear  him  out  too  ?" 

"N-no.  Nothing  will  wear  Jimmy  out.  He's  inde- 
structible. He'll  wear  her  out." 


HER  BOOK  207 

"He  says  he's  going  to  take  a  house  in  the  country. 
How  do  you  think  that'll  answer?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  don't  know,  Walter.  I  don't  really  know.  It 
sounds  risky." 

"The  whole  thing,"  I  said,  "was  risky  from  the  start." 

"There  are  two  things,"  she  said,  "that  would  save 
them — if  Reggie  were  to  come  round.  Or  if  Jimmy  were 
to  have  an  illness;  and  neither  of  them  is  in  the  least 
likely  to  happen." 

"There's  a  third  thing,"  I  said — "if  Viola  were  to  have 
a  baby." 

"That  isn't  likely  either.  He'd  never  let  her.  He  says- 
it  would  kill  her.  It's  pitiful,  it's  pitiful.  Can't  you  see," 
she  said,  "that  he  adores  her  ?" 

I  said  I  didn't  see  what  we  were  there  for,  and  that  it 
was  time  for  us  to  go. 

As  I  followed  her  down  the  stairs  that  led  to  the  Tudor 
hall  she  paused  suddenly  on  the  landing  where  a  second 
lion  marked  the  turn.  She  had  her  finger  to  her  lip.  We 
drew  back.  But  not  before  I  had  looked  down  over  the 
balustrade  into  the  hall  and  seen  Jimmy  sitting  on  one 
of  the  thrones  with  the  lilies  of  France,  and  Viola  crouch- 
ing beside  him  on  the  rug  with  her  head  hidden  on  his 
knee. 

He  had  his  hands  on  her  forehead  and  was  saying, 
"It's  all  right.  Do  you  suppose  I  don't  understand  ?" 


XI 

IT  was  late  in  August  before  Jevons  found  a  country 
house  large  enough,  yet  not  too  large,  and  old  enough,  yet 
not  too  old — he  would  have  nothing  that  even  remotely 
suggested  the  Tudor  period.  And  in  the  intervals  of  look- 
ing for  his  house  he  wrote  another  novel  and  two  more 
plays.  There  was  a  decided  falling-oil  in  all  of  them, 
and  I  think  Jevons  himself  was  a  little  nervous.  He  said 
he'd  have  to  be  careful  next  time  or  they'd  find  him  out. 
Once  he  had  settled  the  affair  of  the  house  he  would  set 
to  work  and  strengthen  the  position  which,  after  all,  he 
hadn't  lost. 

He  had  gained,  if  anything.  Nineteen-thirteen  stands 
as  his  year  of  maximum  prosperity.  Even  the  house  in 
May  fair  justified  itself  when  he  let  it,  with  all  its  princi- 
pal rooms  furnished,  to  an  American  railway  magnate  at 
a  rent  that  enabled  him  to  indulge  the  passion  he  had 
conceived  for  Amershott  Old  Grange. 

He  used  to  say  he  would  never  have  been  happy  again 
if  he  couldn't  have  had  Amershott  Old  Grange.  Every- 
thing about  it  seemed  propitious.  They  had  found  it  by 
a  happy  accident  when  they  weren't  looking  for  it,  weren't 
thinking  of  it,  when  they  were  trying  to  get  out  of  Sussex 
and  back  to  London  after  a  long  day's  motoring  in  search 
of  houses.  Nothing  that  Essex  or  Kent  or  Buckingham- 
shire (Hertfordshire  was  ruled  out  by  the  presence  in  it 
of  the  Registrar)  or  Surrey  or  Hampshire  or  Sussex,  so 
far,  could  do  had  satisfied  them,  and  Jevons  was  beginning 

208 


HER  BOOK  209 

to  talk  rather  wildly  about  Oxfordshire  and  Gloucester- 
shire and  Wilts,  and  even  Devon  and  Cornwall,  when  they 
lost  their  way  in  the  cross-country  roads  between  Mid- 
hurst  and  Petworth  and  so  came  upon  Amershott  Old 
Grange.  It  was  hidden  behind  an  old  rose-red  brick  wall 
in  a  lane,  and  it  was  only  by  standing  up  in  the  motor- 
car that  they  caught  sight  of  its  long  line  of  red-tiled 
dormer  windows.  The  very  notice-board  was  hidden, 
staggering  back  in  an  ivy  bush  that  topped  the  wall. 

"I  won't  have  a  house,"  said  Jimmy,  "that's  a  day 
older  than  Queen  Anne."  No  more  would  Viola. 

And  the  Old  Grange  was  not  a  day  older  than  Queen 
Anne  or  a  day  younger.  It  was  the  most  perfect  specimen 
of  a  Queen  Anne  house  you  could  have  wished  to  see — the 
long,  straight  front,  the  slender  door,  the  two  storeys 
with  their  rows  of  straight,  flat  windows  and  the  steep 
brows  of  the  dormers  over  them.  It  was  all  rose-red  brick 
and  rose-red  tiles,  with  roses  and  clematis  bursting  out  in 
crimson  and  purple  all  over  the  front.  It  stood  at  right 
angles  to  the  wall  and  to  the  lane,  and  there  was  a  long 
grass-garden  in  front  of  it,  with  walls  all  round  and 
herbaceous  borders  under  the  walls;  and  from  the  high 
postern  door  in  the  outer  wall  opening  to  the  lane  a  wide 
flagged  path  went  all  the  way  in  front  of  the  house  to  the 
door  in  the  inner  wall  that  led  into  the  kitchen  garden 
and  the  orchard.  Further  down  the  lane  were  the  doors 
of  the  courtyard  at  the  back  of  the  house  where  the  out- 
houses and  the  stables  and  the  dovecot  were;  and  beyond 
the  courtyard  there  was  a  paddock,  and  you  would  have 
thought  that  was  enough.  But,  besides  his  Queen  Anne 
house  and  his  gardens  and  his  orchard  and  his  courtyard 
and  his  dovecot  and  his  paddock,  Jimmy  had  acquired 
ten  acres  of  moorland,  to  say  nothing  of  a  belt  of  pinewood 
that  ran  the  whole  length  of  his  estate  behind  the  kitchen 


210  THE  BELFRY 

garden  and  the  paddock  and  the  moor.  And  the  whole 
business  of  acquiring  this  property  went  without  a  hitch. 
He  took  it  on  the  long  tail-end  of  a  lease  from  an  impe- 
cunious landlord  who  couldn't  afford  to  keep  it  up. 

He  obtained  possession  by  September  and  in  the  early 
spring  of  nineteen-fourteen  he  was  settled  in  Amershott 
Old  Grange. 

They  furnished  it  as  they  had  furnished  the  house  in 
Edwardes  Square,  with  the  most  complete  return  to  beau- 
tiful simplicity. 

Jimmy  polished  off  a  short  novel  and  a  play  between 
October  and  June,  and  kept  himself  going  on  the  pro- 
ceeds of  his  old  novels,  his  old  plays,  and  his  old  short 
stories  collected  in  a  volume.  Then  I  think  he  must  have 
sat  down  to  wait  events. 

For  when  we  went  down  to  stay  with  them  we  found 
him  waiting.  He  was  entirely  prepared  for  certain  con- 
tingencies. If  anybody  knew  anything  about  English 
social  conditions  it  was  Tasker  Jevons.  He  had  calculated 
all  the  chances  and  provided  for  the  ostracism  that  attends 
the  inexpert  invader  of  the  country-side.  He  was  aware 
that  there  were  powers  in  and  around  Amershott  that  were 
not  to  be  conciliated.  The  very  fact  that  their  territory 
lay  so  near  the  frontier  (Amershott  is  only  sixty-seven 
miles  from  London)  kept  them  on  their  guard.  To  any 
good  old  county  family,  Tasker  Jevons's  celebrity  was 
nothing,  if  it  was  not  an  added  offence,  and  his  opulence 
was  less  than  nothing.  In  settling  among  them  he  ran 
the  risk  of  being  ignored.  But  when  it  came  to  ignoring, 
Jimmy  considered  that  success  lay  with  the  party  who 
got  in  first.  So  before  he  settled  he  took  care  to  diffuse 
a  sort  of  impression  that  the  Tasker  Jevonses  were  never 
at  home  to  anybody,  that  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  a 
great  novelist  and  playwright  would  have  time  for  calling 


HER  BOOK  211 

and  being  called  on,  even  if  he  had  the  absurd  inclination. 
He  had  one  solitary  introduction  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  he  worked  it  very  adroitly,  not  to  obtain  other  intro- 
ductions, but  to  spread  the  rumour  of  retirement  and 
exclusiveness. 

His  arrival,  preceded  by  this  attractive  legend,  became 
an  event.  You  couldn't  even  affect  to  overlook  it.  And 
if  it  was  not  possible  for  Jimmy  to  subdue  his  features  to 
an  expression  of  complete  ignoring,  he  had  got  in  so 
promptly  with  his  attitude  that  it  took  the  wind  out  of 
the  sails  of  any  people  who  were  merely  proposing  to 
ignore. 

Then,  having  come  amongst  them  as  a  shy  recluse, 
Jimmy  began  instantly  to  focus  attention  on  himself. 
He  hadn't  been  six  weeks  in  the  county  before  he  had 
become  the  most  conspicuous  object  in  it. 

I  don't  know  how  he  did  it;  you  never  really  caught 
him  at  it;  and  yet,  when  you  came  down  to  stay  with 
him,  you  felt  all  the  time  that  he  was  doing  it;  you  felt 
a  sort  of  shame  (a  shame  that  he  couldn't  feel)  in  seeing 
that  he  did  it  so  perpetually  and  so  well.  He  had  a  way 
of  making  his  privacy  a  public  thing.  There  was  some- 
thing positively  indecent  in  his  detachment ;  it  advertised 
him  as  no  possible  immersion  could  have  done.  I've  seen 
him  lying  out  on  his  moor  basking  all  by  himself  in  the 
sun ;  I've  seen  him  meditating  all  by  himself  in  his  pine- 
wood  ;  I've  seen  him  sitting  in  his  walled  garden,  with  the 
apparatus  of  his  business  all  about  him,  when  you  would 
have  said  that  if  ever  a  man's  life  was  hidden  and  with- 
drawn it  was  Tasker  Jevons's.  And  yet  it  wasn't.  You 
knew  it  wasn't;  and  he  knew  that  you  knew.  He  knew 
that  his  gardener  and  his  chauffeur  and  his  butler  and  his 
cook  and  his  housemaid  and  his  parlourmaid  knew  that 
he  was  sitting  in  his  garden  writing,  or  meditating  in  his 


212  THE  BELFRY 

pinewood  or  basking  on  his  moor  in  the  sun,  and  that  their 
knowledge  penetrated  to  every  house  in  the  village,  to 
every  house  in  the  county  within  a  radius  of  twenty 
miles.  And  when  he  was  not  doing  any  of  these  promi- 
nently tranquil  things  he  was  tearing  about  the  country 
in  his  motor-car. 

I  have  never  seen  anything  like  Jevons's  motoring.  It 
was  in  this  new  aspect  of  his  that  he  was,  I  think,  most 
remarkable.  I  say  he  made  his  privacy  a  public  thing; 
but  in  the  furious  publicity  of  his  motoring  it  was  the 
other  way  round.  He  turned  the  public  roads  into  a 
private  track  through  paradise.  I  do  not  mean  that  he 
was  a  road-hog;  far  from  it.  He  had  the  most  exquisite 
manners  of  the  road.  He  would  slow  down  for  a  hen  in 
the  distance  and  upset  himself  into  the  ditch  to  avoid  a 
rabbit.  I  have  known  him  (with  his  first  car)  give  a  lift 
to  any  filthy  tramp  between  Midhurst  and  Portsmouth. 
I  mean  that  the  act  of  motoring  transported  him ;  and  he 
did  these  things  instinctively,  mechanically,  without  in- 
terruption to  his  rapture.  Speed  and  the  wind  of  speed, 
the  air  rushing  by  like  a  water-race  as  he  ripped  through 
it,  the  streaming  past  him  of  trees  and  hedges,  the  hum- 
ming and  throbbing  of  his  engines,  were  ecstasy  to  Jimmy. 
He  had  learned  to  drive  the  thing,  and  his  sense  of  power 
over  it  gave  him  the  physical  exaltation  that  he  craved 
for.  I  believe  that  when  he  sat  in  his  motor-car,  driving 
it,  he  was  filled,  intoxicated,  with  the  pride  and  splendour 
of  life.  He  had  power  over  everybody  and  everything 
that  lay  in  his  track,  except  other  motor-cars;  and  he 
exulted  in  his  knowledge  that  he  could  annihilate  them  and 
didn't.  He  enjoyed  (voluptuously)  his  own  mercy  that 
spared  them.  Through  his  motor-car  he  attained  such  an 
extension  of  his  personality  that  he  became  intolerable  to 
other  people  and  unrecognizable  to  himself. 


HER  BOOK  213 

And  yet  I  do  not  think  that  even  at  the  height  of  his 
ecstasy  he  ever  really  forgot  that  he  was  Tasker  Jevons, 
the  great  novelist  and  playwright,  in  his  motor-car. 
When  he  drove  you  through  Portsmouth  or  Chichester, 
or  even  through  little  Midhurst,  you  felt  that  he  thrilled 
from  head  to  foot  with  self -consciousness.  He  knew  and 
had  acute  pleasure  in  knowing  that  people  noticed  him  as 
he  went  by ;  that  the  tradesmen  turned  out  of  their  shops 
to  stare  after  him;  and  that  everybody  said,  "See  that 
chap  ?  That's  Tasker  Jevons.  He  always  drives  his  own 
car." 

He  owned  that  he  enjoyed  it.  I  remember  the  first 
time  we  went  down  to  stay  with  them  (it  was  in  May  of 
nineteen-fourteen),  when  he  was  driving  us  through  Mid- 
hurst  from  the  station,  how  he  said  to  us,  "I'm  glad  I 
thought  of  living  in  the  country.  It  makes  me  feel  cele- 
brated." 

We  asked  him  if  he  hadn't  ever  felt  it  before;  and  he 
answered  solemnly,  "Never  for  a  minute.  Never,  I  mean, 
like  I  do  down  here.  In  London,  if  you  do  gather  a  crowd 
round  you,  you're  swallowed  up  in  it.  Besides,  you  can't 
always  gather  a  crowd.  D'you  suppose,  if  I  were  to  drive 
down  Piccadilly  in  this  car — short  of  standing  on  my  head 
— I  could  attract  the  attention  I've  attracted  to-day  ?  You 
saw  those  fellows  come  out  and  look  at  me  ?  Well — they 
do  that  pretty  nearly  every  time,  Furnival. 

"No.  London's  no  good.  Too  many  houses — too  many 
people — too  many  motor-cars.  You  can't  stand  out. 
What  a  man  wants  to  set  him  off  is  landscape,  Fumy, 
landscape.  You  should  see  me  on  the  goose-green  at 
Amershott  towards  post-time." 

Well,  I  did  see  him  on  the  goose-green  towards  post- 
time,  and  I  saw  what  he  meant.  It  was  really  as  if  I'd 
never  seen  him  before  properly. 


214  THE  BELFRY 

Heavens,  how  he  stood  out !  It  was  as  if  a  stage  had 
been  cleared  for  him,  and  for  the  figure  he  cut.  He  was 
quite  right.  You  couldn't  have  done  it  in  Piccadilly,  or 
even  in  the  suburbs.  And  he  wasn't  in  his  motor-car, 
mind  you,  then;  he  was  simply  strolling  over  from  his 
house  to  post  a  letter  in  the  village  on  the  green,  and  I 
do  not  know  how  he  contrived  to  infuse  into  so  simple  an 
act  that  subtle  taint  of  advertisement.  There  was  no 
necessity  for  him  to  post  his  own  letters,  he  could  easily 
have  sent  a  servant.  But  I  do  believe  he  couldn't  bear 
to  miss  the  opportunity  of  being  seen.  When  he  passed 
the  Vicarage,  the  Vicar  and  his  wife  and  daughters  were 
generally  in  their  garden,  and  they  turned  to  look  at  his 
passing,  and  he  was  exquisitely  conscious  of  them.  The 
villagers  came  out  on  to  their  doorsteps  to  look  at  him,  and 
he  was  conscious  of  the  villagers.  The  geese  followed 
him  in  a  long  line  across  the  common  and  stretched  out 
their  necks  after  him,  and  he  was  conscious  of  the  geese. 
He  enjoyed  the  publicity  they  gave  him,  and  he  said  so. 

And  I  began  to  wonder  whether  the  funny  frankness 
that  had  so  disarmed  us  was  really  as  funny  as  it  looked 
(the  idea  of  disarmament,  you  see,  was  serious),  whether 
he  didn't  say  these  things  because  he  knew  we  saw  him  as 
he  really  was;  because  he  saw  himself  as  he  really  was, 
and  couldn't  bear  it ;  because  there  was  no  escape  for  him 
unless  he  could  make  believe  that  he  was  in  fun  when  he 
really  wasn't. 

I  do  believe  there  was  a  time  (any  time  before  his  Tudor 
period)  when  he  was  in  fun,  pure  fun ;  and  even  through 
the  Tudor  period  his  enjoyment  of  himself  was  innocent. 
But  as  I  walked  home  with  him  across  his  moor  that 
evening  it  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  Jimmy's  innocence 
was  gone.  Living  in  the  country  had  killed  it.  I  had 


HER  BOOK  215 

never  perceived  so  definite  a  taint  of  vulgarity  in  him 
before. 

You  would  have  thought  it  would  have  been  all  the 
other  way,  that  living  in  the  country  would  have  made 
altogether  for  simplicity  and  purity.  I  believe  that  quite 
honestly  he  had  thought  it  would,  that  he  had  come  into 
the  country  to  be  purified  and  simplified,  and  to  put  him- 
self right  with  Viola  for  ever.  And  the  horrid  irony  of 
it  was  that  the  country  didn't  do  any  of  these  things  to 
him ;  it  complicated  him,  it  saturated  him  with  that  taint 
I've  mentioned,  and  instead  of  putting  him  right  it  showed 
him  up.  Quite  horribly  and  cruelly  it  showed  him  up. 
I  do  not  think  there  was  a  single  weakness  or  a  single 
secret  meanness  that  he  had  that  didn't  suddenly  rise  up 
and  stand  out  on  the  background  of  Amershott. 

All  through  that  summer  there,  quite  frankly,  I  de- 
tested Jevons.  I  believe  that  Norah  came  near  detesting 
him,  that  she  felt  something  very  like  contempt  for  him. 

And  if  Norah  felt  it  you  may  imagine  what  Viola  would 
feel. 

She  was  with  us  one  evening  (it  was  June,  I  think,  and 
our  second  visit),  when  Jimmy  showed  most  unmistakably 
the  cloven  hoof.  We  had  come  in  from  a  long  motor- 
drive,  and  he  had  made  at  once,  as  he  always  did,  for  the 
silver  plate  in  the  hall  where  cards  left  by  callers  were 
put,  if  any  callers  came.  I  can  see  him  now,  breathing 
hard.  I  can  see  the  glance  he  cast  at  the  cards,  and  the 
little  jerky  curb  he  put  on  his  excitement — he  had  the 
grace  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  And  then  I  see  him  holding 
four  cards  in  his  hand,  sober  and  quiet  and  flushed  like 
a  man  who  has  triumphed  solemnly.  And  I  hear  him 
read  out  the  names :  "Lord  Amerley,  Lady  Amerley,  Lady 
Octavia  Amerley,  the  Honourable  Frances  Amerley. 
That's  all  right.  I  gave  them  three  months." 


216  THE  BELFRY 

And  I  see  Viola  look  at  him,  taking  in  his  figure  in  its 
motor-dress,  and  his  face,  with  the  foolish,  weak  elation 
he  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  keep  out  of  it. 

Again  I  see  him,  with  his  little  dreadful  air  of  fervid 
solemnity — and  I  don't  know  whether  I  dreamed  it  or 
whether  it  was  really  there — very  spruce  and  strutting 
about  the  lawns  of  Amerley  Park  at  that  garden-party 
they  took  us  to. 

And  later  on — in  the  very  beginning  of  July  it  must 
have  been — I  see  him  on  his  own  lawn  at  his  own  garden- 
party,  and — I  didn't  dream  it  this  time — he  was  really 
dreadful.  Instead  of  carrying  it  off  with  the  levity  that 
had  so  often  saved  him  from  perdition,  there  was  that 
revolting  triumph  about  him  and  an  uneasy  eagerness, 
as  if  he  knew  that  his  triumph  wasn't  quite  complete.  But 
the  garden-party  was,  as  he  would  have  said,  all  right. 
They  were  all  there,  those  people  he  had  given  three 
months  to.  He  had  pulled  it  off  precisely  as  he  had 
schemed  and  calculated.  Those  legends  of  his  detachment 
and  his  hermit  habits  had  been  worked  so  as  to  excite  a 
supreme  curiosity — and  it  was  being  satisfied. 

And  I  cannot  tell  you  whether  he  was  really  altered,  or 
whether  he  had  been  like  that  all  the  time  before  Amer- 
shott  had  shown  him  up,  and  none  of  us  had  seen  it  except 
Viola. 

Oh  no — it's  impossible.  He  had  altered.  If  he  had 
been  like  this  we  must  have  seen  it.  What  Viola  had  seen 
— if  she  had  seen  anything — was  only  the  foreshadowing, 
the  bare  possibility  of  this. 

Charlie  Thesiger  was  at  that  garden-party  (he  had 
retired  from  the  service  with  the  rank  of  Captain). 

And  it  was  at  the  garden-party  that  I  first  noticed  a 
change  in  his  manner  to  his  cousin's  husband.  He  used 
to  treat  Jevona  with  a  certain  superciliousness,  and  with 


HER  BOOK  217 

as  much  amusement,  as  much  perception  of  his  absurdity, 
as  was  possible  for  Charlie,  who  perceived  so  few  things. 
Now  I  was  struck  with  the  correct  young  man's  deference 
to  his  host.  It  was  really  as  if  it  had  at  last  dawned  on 
Charlie  that  Jevons  was  his  host,  and  that  he  had  other 
claims  to  distinction  as  well.  The  more  dreadful  Jimmy 
was,  the  more  courteous  Charlie  showed  himself  to  Jimmy. 
And  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Jevons  had  a  way  of 
treating  Charlie  as  if  he  didn't  matter,  as  if  for  all  recog- 
nizable purposes  he  wasn't  there. 

When  I  spoke  of  this  to  Xorah,  she  said  that  Viola 
had  told  him  that  if  he  couldn't  be  decent  to  Jimmy  she 
wouldn't  have  him  there. 

Well,  there  he  was,  hanging  about  Viola  from  morning 
till  night;  he  had  any  amount  of  time  on  his  hands  now, 
and  he  spent  most  of  it  at  Amershott.  He  was  there  when 
we  weren't  sometimes,  so  that  we  couldn't  keep  track  of 
him.  But  his  purposes  ought  to  have  been  apparent  to 
us.  I  think  it  was  partly  because  he  was  aware  of  them 
himself  that  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  be  decent  to  Jimmy, 
almost  as  if  he  were  sorry  for  him  beforehand. 

For  it  was  evident  enough  that  Viola  liked  his  being 
there,  and  liked  to  have  him  hanging  round  her.  There 
was  nothing  about  him  that  shocked  or  grated.  I've  no 
doubt  he  made  himself  entirely  charming.  His  manners 
could  be  as  beautiful  as  any  of  the  Thesigers'  when  he 
chose,  and  they  soothed  her.  I  think  she  had  ceased  to 
feel  them  as  a  reproach  to  Jimmy.  She  had  given  up  his 
manners,  poor  dear,  long  ago,  as  a  bad  job.  It  was  as  if 
she  had  slaked  her  thirst  for  the  unusual.  Some  secret 
and  strong  revulsion  had  thrown  her  back  on  the  people 
and  the  things  that  she  had  been  brought  up  amongst  and 
that  she  had  run  away  from.  When  Jimmy  jarred  on  her 


2i8  THE  BELFRY 

she  turned  to  Charlie  for  relief.  And,  after  all,  as  Norah 
said,  he  was  her  cousin. 

I  don't  think  we  either  of  us  saw  anything  more  in 
it  than  that.  Without  some  such  reaction  she  must  have 
surrendered  to  Amershott.  She  couldn't  defend  Jevons 
against  that  showing  up.  She  couldn't  defend  herself 
against  those  revelations,  she  could  only  stand  by  and 
look  on  at  his  enormity  and  shudder.  .  Unless  she  had 
put  her  dear  eyes  out  she  must  have  seen  that  in  the 
country  he  was  not  only  a  bounder  but  a  snob.  And  she 
must  have  writhed  in  feeling  that  to  see  him  that  way 
was  to  be  a  bit  of  a  snob  herself.  She  had  accused  herself 
of  snobbishness  long  ago,  before  she  married  him,  when, 
in  order  to  marry  him,  she  had  burned  her  boats. 

What  could  she  do?  She  couldn't  put  her  eyes  out. 
But  I  believe  she  would  have  been  grateful  to  anybody 
who  would  have  put  them  out  for  her. 

I  can't  tell  whether  she  was  always  unhappy.  I  rather 
think  she  had  liked  Amershott,  the  house  and  the  garden 
and  the  pinewood  and  the  bit  of  moor,  and  I  am  certain 
that  she  liked  motoring  almost  as  much  as  Jimmy  did  at 
first.  She  could  even  take  pleasure  in  Jimmy's  power 
over  the  car  when  they  were  alone  with  it  in  the  open 
country,  when  his  pleasure  had  no  taint  in  it.  I've  heard 
her  say,  when  he  wanted  to  run  down  to  Chi  Chester  or 
Portsmouth,  "Oh,  for  Heaven's  sake,  let's  go  somewhere 
where  nobody  can  look  at  us !" 

She  must  have  regarded  the  open  country  as  the  last 
refuge  of  his  innocence.  For  her,  more  than  for  any  of 
us,  he  had  lost  it. 

How  far  he  really  lost  it  we  shall  never  know.  Even 
now,  with  all  my  lights,  with  that  intense  country  light 
fairly  beating  on  him,  I  can  wonder :  Am  I  saying  these 


HER  BOOK  219 

things  because  I  think  them?  Or  because  I  believe  I 
must  have  thought  them  then  ?  And  I  cannot  answer  my 
own  wonder.  I  remember  how  at  Amershott,  when  I  sat 
beside  him  in  that  car  of  his  and  watched  his  ecstasy,  I 
used  to  pull  myself  up  and  say  to  myself,  "You  know 
he  isn't  like  that.  Look  at  him — what  woolly  lamb  could 
be  more  simple  and  innocent  than  he  is  now?"  And  if 
anybody  had  come  to  me  and  asked  me  if  I  didn't  think 
that  Jevons  was  a  little  awful  I  should  have  said  that  if 
you  were  a  little  awful  yourself  you  might  think  so,  but 
not  otherwise.  My  conscience  has  told  me  that  as  he  be- 
came more  successful  I  became  more  critical ;  it  has  even 
suggested  that  I  may  have  been  jealous  of  his  success. 

But  that  was  in  the  days  (they  were  comparatively 
innocent)  of  his  first  motor-car.  Round  that  car  there 
really  is  a  light  of  romance  and  of  adventure,  a  glamour 
that  isn't  at  all  the  glamour  of  his  opulence.  In  those 
days  he  did  look  upon  a  motor-car  mainly  as  an  instrument 
of  pleasure,  and  not  as  a  vulgar  advertisement  of  his  in- 
come. In  June,  at  any  rate,  he  was  still  the  master  of 
his  car  and  not — as  we  saw  him  later  on — its  servant. 
There  never  was  anything  like  that  first  fury  of  his 
motoring. 

It  couldn't  last.  He  was  wearing  himself  out.  Those 
early  excesses  exhausted  his  capacity  for  pleasure,  and 
when  we  came  to  stay  with  him  in  the  last  two  weeks  of 
July  we  found  him  apathetic  about  motoring. 

But  not  about  motor-cars.  As  far  as  the  cars  went  he 
had  developed  into  an  incurable  motor-maniac.  He  was 
never  tired  of  talking  about  carburetters,  and  tyres,  and 
petrol,  and  garages  and  gear.  He  dreamed  of  these  things 
at  night.  Every  day  he  invented  some  extraordinary  con- 
trivance for  increasing  speed  and  lessening  friction.  He 


220  THE  BELFRY 

knew  all  that  was  to  be  known  about  the  different  kinds 
of  cars;  and  he  would  roll  their  names  on  his  tongue — 
Panhard  and  Fiat  and  Daimler  and  Mercedes  and  Rolls- 
Royce,  as  if  the  sound  of  them  caressed  him  like  music. 

And  the  first  car  which  he  had  mastered — it  was  a 
comparatively  cheap  one,  but  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  say 
what  kind  it  was,  for  the  poor  thing  had  gone  to  pieces 
under  his  hand  in  six  months;  he  had  served  her,  his 
chauffeur  said,  something  cruel — that  first  car  had  been 
sold  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  and  Viola  was  mourn- 
ing for  it  when  we  came  down  in  July. 

We  couldn't  think  why  she  mourned,  for  he  had  bought 
another.  We  supposed  that  the  new  car  had  broken  down, 
for  we  were  met  at  Midhurst  station  by  the  local  cab 
proprietor.  But  we  were  very  soon  to  know  that  nothing 
had  happened  to  the  new  car,  and  that  something  very 
serious  indeed  had  happened  to  Jimmy. 

He  had  gone  mad — you  can  only  call  it  mad — over  his 
new  car. 

As  soon  as  we  had  tea  we  were  taken  to  see  it  where 
it  stood  in  the  coach-house  that  served  as  a  garage. 

It  was  a  magpie  car — the  first,  Jimmy  told  me,  that  had 
appeared  down  in  that  part  of  the  country — white,  with 
black  bonnet  and  black  splashboards,  and  black  leather 
hood  and  cushions ;  so  black  that  its  body,  in  the  matchless 
purity  of  its  whiteness,  staggered  you.  Anybody,  Jevons 
said,  could  have  an  all-white  car,  and  it  wouldn't  be 
noticed  any  more  than  a  common  taxi-cab.  But  one 
magpie  in  a  countless  crowd  of  cars  annihilated  all  the 
rest.  Lemon  colour  was  good  and  so  was  scarlet;  but 
for  effect — for  sheer  destruction  to  other  automobilists — 
there  was  nothing  like  a  white  car  with  black  points. 
It  was,  Jimmy  said  and  Kendal,  the  chauffeur,  said,  a 
perfect  car.  From  their  tone  you  wondered  what  you 


HER  BOOK  221 

had  ever  done  that  you  should  be  allowed  to  approach 
and  see  it  where  it  stood. 

Where  it  stood,  I  say.  You  couldn't  see  that  car 
doing  anything  else.  It  stood  like  an  immense  idol  in  a 
temple;  and  it  looked  as  if  all  its  life  it  never  had  done 
anything  else  but  stand  in  its  perfection  to  be  stared  at. 
And  by  its  air  of  self -consciousness,  of  majesty,  of  arro- 
gant power  in  repose,  you  gathered  that  it  knew  it  was 
there  to  be  stared  at.  The  thing  was  drawn  up  at  the  far 
end  of  the  garage,  where  no  breath  could  blow  on  it,  over 
an  open  pit.  You  knew  that  Kendal,  the  chauffeur,  went 
down  on  a  ladder  into  the  pit  to  examine  the  secret  being 
of  the  car ;  you  knew  it  and  yet  it  was  incredible.  You 
refused  to  believe  that  an  outrage  to  which  common 
cars  were  subject  ever  had  been  or  would  be  perpetrated 
on  this  holy  one.  You  would  have  said  that  no  spot  of 
mud  or  dust  or  rain  had  ever  lighted  on  it;  it  might 
have  descended  into  the  garage  out  of  heaven  for  any 
sign  of  travel  that  it  showed.  It  was  surrounded  by  I 
know  not  what  atmosphere  of  consecration  and  immunity. 

So  that  Norah's  first  question  sounded  like  a  profanity. 

"What  speed  is  it  ?"  she  said. 

It  might  have  been  fancy,  but  I  thought  that  Jevons's 
face  underwent  a  change.  I  certainly  saw  Kendal  the 
chauffeur  looking  at  it. 

"Speed?"  he  said.  "Speed?  Well — you  can  speed 
her  up  to  sixty  miles  an  hour  if  you  want  to."  (He 
seemed  to  say,  "If  she  ever  is  speeded  up,"  or  "You  jolly 
well  may  want.") 

He  ran  his  hand  lovingly  along  the  car's  white  flank 
as  if  it  were  alive  and  could  respond  to  the  caress. 

"She's  a  beauty,"  he  said. 

The  chauffeur  looked  at  him  again. 


222  THE  BELFRY 

"You  won't  want  to  knock  her  about  like  you  did  the 
last  one,  Mr.  Jevons,"  he  said. 

And  Jimmy's  face  expressed  a  sort  of  horror. 

The  chauffeur  looked  at  us  then,  and,  if  you  can  wink 
without  any  motion  of  the  eyelids,  he  winked.  He  saw, 
and  he  was  trying  to  indicate  to  us,  the  state  that  Jevons 
had  fallen  into. 

It  was  infatuation;  it  was  idolatry;  it  was  the  most 
extraordinary  passion  I  have  ever  known  a  man  otherwise 
sane  to  be  possessed  by.  You  would  have  said  that  that 
creature  with  the  black-and-white  body  and  the  terrific 
bowels  of  machinery  had  some  sinister  and  magic  power 
over  him.  He  loved  it;  he  worshipped  it;  he  was  afraid 
of  it.  And  when  you  think  of  how,  as  the  chauffeur  said, 
he  had  "served"  the  other  car 

Knock  her  about,  indeed !  He  daren't  take  her  out  of 
the  garage  for  a  fifteen-mile  run  without  agonies  of  appre- 
hension. He  never  took  her  out  at  all  unless  he  was  cer- 
tain that  it  wouldn't  rain  and  that  there  wouldn't  be  any 
mud  or  any  dust  or  any  wind  (I  don't  know  what  harm 
he  thought  the  wind  would  do  her) .  Instead  of  taking 
her  out  he  would  spend  hours  in  the  garage  standing  still 
and  looking  at  her,  stooping  sometimes  to  examine  her  for 
a  spot  or  a  crack  on  her  enamel,  but  always  with  reverence. 
I  believe  he  never  touched  her  without  washing  his  hands 
first 

We  had  been  at  Amershott  a  week  and  we  hadn't  been 
out  in  that  car  three  times,  though  the  weather  was  per- 
fect. Jimmy  never  could  see  that  it  was  perfect  enough. 
If  it  hadn't  rained  for  two  days  he  was  afraid  of  dust; 
if  it  did  rain  he  was  afraid  of  mud ;  what  he  wanted  was 
one  light  shower  to  lay  the  dust;  and  when  he  got  it  he 
was  afraid  of  another  shower  coming.  And  on  hot  days 
he  was  afraid  the  sun  might  do  something.  And  he  was 


HER  BOOK  223 

afraid  of  us  all  the  time  lest  we  should  ask  him  to  take 
the  car  out  on  a  day  that  wouldn't  do. 

I  do  not  know  how  or  why  he  had  come  to  look  on  that 
car  as  his  god.  It  wasn't,  I  do  believe  that  it  wasn't, 
because  the  thing  was  valuable,  because  he  had  sunk  so 
much  capital  in  that  body  and  those  engines  (he  had 
bought  the  most  expensive  kind  of  car  you  could  buy). 
There  was  a  sort  of  romance,  a  purity  in  his  passion  that 
redeemed  it  from  the  taint  of  grossness.  It  was  the  car's 
own  purity,  her  unique  and  staggering  beauty  that  had 
captivated  him.  And  mixed  with  his  passion  there  was 
the  remorse  and  terror  caused  by  the  memory  of  his  first 
car,  the  victim  of  his  intemperance  in  motoring.  He  had 
evidently  said  to  himself:  "Motor-cars  are  perishable 
things.  I  did  for  my  first  beloved  by  my  excesses.  Bather 
than  knock  this  divinity  about  I  will  abstain  from  motor- 
ing." And  the  cab-proprietor  of  Midhurst  must  have 
made  a  fortune  out  of  Jimmy's  abstinence. 

The  odd  thing  was  that  Charlie  Thesiger  respected  it. 
(He  too  had  come  down  for  the  last  fortnight  in  July.) 
He  was  the  only  one  of  us  who  didn't  protest,  didn't 
clamour,  didn't  try  to  reason  or  to  laugh  Jimmy  out  of  his 
insanity.  And  he  went  further.  He  refused  to  enter  the 
car,  to  be  taken  in  it  on  the  few  suitable  days  when 
Jimmy  allowed  it  to  go  out.  It  was  as  if  he  were  domi- 
nated by  some  scruple  as  morbid  as  his  host's  passion.  We 
couldn't  account  for  it  at  the  time,  for  he  liked  motoring 
excessively,  and  he  couldn't  afford  it. 

I've  wondered  since  whether  this  wasn't  the  way  Charlie 
settled  with  his  conscience,  his  own  sacrifice  to  decency. 
He  could  eat  Jimmy's  bread  and  drink  his  wine  and  stay 
for  weeks  under  his  roof,  since  his  necessity — the  necessity 
of  seeing  Viola — compelled  him,  but  to  profit  by  him  to 
that  extent,  to  make  use  of  Jimmy's  opulence,  was  beyond 


224  THE  BELFRY 

him.  His  conscience  may  have  even  said  to  him,  "If 
he  loves  his  motor-car,  for  God's  sake  let  him  have  that, 
at  any  rate,  to  himself." 

And  Viola  seemed  to  share  Charlie's  scruple.  She,  too, 
shrank  from  using  the  new  car.  And  I  remember  her 
saying  to  me  one  day  as  we  crossed  the  courtyard  and  saw 
Jimmy,  as  usual,  in  the  garage,  worshipping  his  car,  "I'm 
so  glad  he's  got  it.  I  think  it  makes  him  happier."  As 
if  she  had  confessed  that  it  was  all  he  had  got;  that  she 
was  not  able  to  make  him  happy  any  more ;  and  as  if,  in 
some  day  of  unhappiness  that  she  saw  coming,  it  would 
be  a  consolation  to  the  poor  chap.  At  any  rate,  as  if  she 
were  not  in  the  least  jealous  of  the  power  it  had  over  him. 

So,  that  July,  Norah  and  I  drove  with  Jimmy  when  the 
car,  so  to  speak,  let  him  drive  it ;  and  Viola  walked  through 
the  woods  and  over  the  downs  with  Charlie  Thesiger. 

We  often  wondered  what  they  found  to  talk  about. 

That  wonder,  of  what  Viola  could  see  in  Charlie,  and 
how  she  could  endure  for  so  many  hours  the  burden  of  his 
society,  was  all  that  Norah  had  allowed  herself,  so  far,  to 
express.  If  she  felt  any  uneasiness  she  had  not  yet  con- 
fided it  to  me.  As  for  Jevons,  he  tolerated  him  as  you 
only  tolerate  a  thing  that  doesn't  matter.  I  think  hon- 
estly that  to  both  of  them,  Charlie,  in  any  serious  con- 
nection with  Viola,  was  as  impossible  as  Jevons  himself 
had  been  to  her  brother  Reggie. 

So  little  did  he  take  him  seriously  that  at  the  very  end 
of  July  he  went  up  to  London  for  the  inside  of  the  week 
(he  went  by  train  so  as  to  save  the  car)  while  Charlie  was 
still  at  the  Old  Grange. 

It  was  the  week  of  the  international  crisis,  and  Euro- 
pean mobilization  was  occupying  Jimmy's  mind  to  the 
exclusion  of  other  matters.  Still,  you  could  hardly  sup- 


HER  BOOK  225 

pose  that  it  was  the  crisis  that  was  taking  him  up  to 
London.  I  remember  thinking  he  had  run  away  from 
Charlie  Thesiger,  because  he  bored  him. 

He  left  on  Tuesday,  the  twenty-eighth,  and  he  was  to  be 
back  on  Friday,  the  thirty-first,  and  Charlie  was  to  leave 
with  Norah  and  me  and  our  nurse  and  Baby  on  the  Mon- 
day following,  when  our  fortnight  was  up. 

So  on  Friday  afternoon  I  was  a  little  astonished  to  find 
my  sister-in-law,  dressed  in  her  town  suit  of  white  cloth, 
drinking  tea  at  three  o'clock  before  going  up  to  London. 
She  simply  stated  the  fact  that  she  was  going  up.  Norah 
had  said  she  might  stay  in  our  house  and  she  hoped  I 
wouldn't  mind. 

When  I  suggested  that  it  would  surely  be  nicer  for  us 
all  to  go  up  together  on  Monday  she  looked  at  me  with  a 
certain  long-suffering  expression  that  she  had  for  me  at 
times,  and  said  that  wouldn't  suit  her,  since  she  had  got 
to  go  to-day.  She  was  of  course  awfully  sorry  to  leave  us, 
but  Norah  understood,  and  Jimmy  would  look  after  us 
very  well. 

No.  She  wasn't  going  up  by  Midhurst.  She  was  going 
by  Selham. 

She  rose.  I  noticed  the  impatient  energy  of  her  little 
hands  as  they  knotted  her  veil  under  her  chin.  I  looked 
up  her  trains  and  found  that  there  was  none  from  Selham 
till  four  forty-five.  I  pointed  out  to  her  that  there  was 
no  hurry ;  she  had  missed  the  two  fifty-five,  which  had  left 
Selham  fifteen  minutes  ago,  and  she  had  an  hour  to  spare 
even  if  the  car  took  half  an  hour  getting  to  the  station. 
(The  day  was  fine  and  there  was  no  dust.  Even  Jimmy 
couldn't  have  objected  to  her  taking  the  car.) 

But  she  said  she  hadn't  missed  the  two  fifty-five;  she 
wasn't  trying  for  it;  and  she  wasn't  going  in  the  car;  it 
would  be  wanted  to  meet  Jimmy  at  Midhurst  Station; 


226  THE  BELFRY 

and  no — no — no — she  didn't  want  a  cab  from  Midhurst. 
She  was  going  to  walk. 

I  said  it  was  absurd  for  her  to  walk  four  miles  on  a  hot 
day  like  this,  and  she  replied  that  the  day  would  be  cool 
enough  if  only  I'd  keep  quiet.  (She  was  still  long-suf- 
fering.) 

Then  of  course  I  said  I'd  walk  with  her. 

But  that  was  too  much  for  her,  and  she  stamped  her  foot 
and  said  I'd  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  She  didn't  want  any- 
body to  walk  with  her. 

And  when  I  inquired  about  her  luggage But  I 

can't  repeat  what  she  said  about  her  luggage! 

Then  she  softened  suddenly,  as  her  way  was,  and  kissed 
Norah,  and  said  I  was  a  dear,  and  she  was  sorry  for 
snapping  my  head  off,  but  it  was  all  right.  Norah  knew 
all  about  it.  She'd  explain. 

I  can  see  her  standing  in  the  postern  doorway  and  say- 
ing these  things  and  then  giving  me  her  hand  and  holding 
mine  tight,  while  she  shook  her  head  at  me  and  smiled 
that  little  baffling  smile  that  seemed  to  come  up  flickering 
from  her  depths  of  wisdom  on  purpose  to  put  me  in  the 
wrong. 

"The  trouble  with  you,  Furny,"  she  said,  "is  that  you're 
much  too  good." 

She  went ;  and  we  saw  her  tall,  lithe  figure  swinging  up 
the  lane,  past  the  courtyard  and  the  paddock  and  the 
moor. 

Then  Norah  plucked  me  in  by  the  coat-sleeve  as  if  she 
thought  we  oughtn't  to  be  looking  at  her.  We  shut  the 
door  on  her  flight  and  turned  to  each  other  where  we  stood 
on  the  flagged  path  before  the  house. 

"What  does  it  mean  ?"  I  said. 

"It  means  that  she's  at  the  end  of  her  tether." 
end ?"    I  think  I  must  have  gasped. 


HER  BOOK  227 

"The  very  end.     She  can't  stand  it  any  longer." 

"But,"  I  said,  "she — she's  got  to  stand  it.  After 
all " 

"There's  no  good  talking  that  way.  She  cant,  and  that 
settles  it.  I  knew  she  couldn't,  once  she  got  beyond  a 
certain  point." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  I  said,  "that  she's  going  to 
leave  him?" 

"I — don't — know.  I  believe — she's  going  to  think 
about  it." 

"But — it's  out  of  the  question.  She  mustn't  think 
about  it." 

"You  can't  stop  her  thinking,  Wally.  She's  gone  away 
to  think  about  it  sanely.  It's  the  best  thing  she  can  do." 

"And  you're  helping  her  to  get  away?" 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"I'm  only  helping  her  to  think,"  she  said. 

I  was  stern  with  her.  "You're  not.  You're  just  helping 
her  to  bolt,"  I  said.  "You're  conniving  at  her  bolting. 
You've  lent  her  our  house." 

"Isn't  it  better  she  should  come  to  us  ?" 

"No,  it  isn't  better.  I  don't  like  it.  And  I  won't  have 
it.  I  won't  have  you  mixed  up  in  it.  Do  you  under- 
stand ?" 

"Dear  Wally — there  isn't  anything  to  be  mixed  up  in. 
We'll  be  back  on  Monday ;  then  she'll  only  be  staying  with 
us." 

"And  till  then ?" 

"Till  then — for  Heaven's  sake  let  the  poor  thing  have 
peace  ?or  three  days  to  think  in." 

"That's  all  very  well,"  I  said,  "but  what  are  we  to  say 
to  Jimmy  when  he  comes  back  this  afternoon?" 

"You  say — you  say  she's  tired  of — of  Amershott  and 
wants  three  days  in  London  to  herself. — No,  you  don't. 


228  THE  BELFRY 

You  don't  say  anything.  You  leave  it  to  me.  Vee-Vee 
said  it  was  to  be  left  to  me." 

"And  I  say  I  won't  have  you  dragged  into  it.  Good 
Heavens,  have  you  any  idea  what  you  may  be  let  in  for, 
supposing ?" 

"Supposing  what  ?" 

I  couldn't  say  what.  But  I  don't  think  I  really  had 
supposed  anything — then. 

"You  needn't  suppose  things,"  she  said.  "Vee-Vee 
would  never  let  us  in.  Look  here,  Wally — you've  got  to 
trust  me  this  time.  I'm  going  to  see  Vee-Vee  through, 
and  I'm  going  to  see  Jimmy  through ;  but  I  can't  do  it  if 
you  don't  trust  ma  I  can't  do  it  if  you  interfere." 

I  said  I  did  trust  her,  and  that  God  knew  I  didn't  want 
to  interfere,  but  was  she  quite  sure  she  was  doing  a  wise 
thing? 

She  said,  "Quite  sure.  Let's  go  and  lie  down  in  the 
pine-wood  till  tea-time.  I  wonder  if  Jimmy  would  mind 
us  going  into  Midhurst  with  the  car.  We  shouldn't  hurt 
it,  sitting  in  it." 

We  lay  out  in  the  pine-wood  till  we  heard  the  bell  for 
tea,  which  we  had  ordered  a  little  before  four,  in  case 
Jevons  should  wire  for  the  car  to  meet  him  by  the  early 
afternoon  train  that  got  to  Midhurst  at  four-sixteen. 

The  table  was  set  as  usual  in  the  garden  on  the  lawn  in 
front  of  the  house. 

By  four  o'clock  no  wire  had  come  from  Jevons;  so  we 
knew  we  needn't  expect  him  till  a  later  train.  He  nearly 
always  came  by  Waterloo  and  Petersfield  and  was  met  at 
Midhurst,  which  gave  him  his  public.  But  he  might  come, 
as  Viola  had  gone,  by  Victoria  and  Horsham  and  be  met 
at  Selham. 

I  remember  saying,  in  a  startling  manner  as  the  idea 
struck  me,  "Supposing  he  comes  by  Victoria?" 


HER  BOOK  329 

And  Norah  said,  "What  if  he  does  ?" 

And  I,  "They  might  meet  at  Horsham." 

"Why  shouldn't  they  ?"  she  said.  "You  don't  suppose 
he'll  eat  her  for  running  up  to  town?" 

"He  might,"  I  said,  "think  it  odd  of  her." 

"Not  he.  The  heauty  of  Jimmy  is  that  odd  things 
don't  seem  odd  to  him.  Do  you  know  where  Charlie  is  ?" 

I  didn't.  We  had  finished  tea  before  either  of  us  had 
thought  of  him.  We  shouted  to  him  through  the  open 
windows  of  the  house,  for  Charlie  had  a  habit  of  mooning 
about  indoors  till  Viola  was  ready  to  walk  with  him. 

No  answer  came  to  our  summons,  but  it  brought  Parker, 
the  butler,  out  on  to  the  lawn.  He  had  a  slightly  surprised 
and  slightly  embarrassed  look  on  his  respectable  and 
respectful  face,  no  longer  demoralized  by  Jimmy. 

"Were  you  looking  for  the  Captain,  sir  ?"  he  said. 

I  said  we  were. 

Something  grave  and  a  little  sorrowful  came  into 
Parker's  embarrassed  look. 

"Didn't  you  know  he'd  gone,  sir  ?" 

I  said  I  didn't  even  know  he  was  going;  and  then  I 
saw  Norah  looking  at  me. 

Parker  was  trying  not  to  look  at  Norah.  He  began 
gathering  up  the  tea-things  as  if  to  justify  his  presence  and 
explain  it. 

"When  did  he  go  ?"  I  said  as  casually  as  I  could. 

"Well,  sir — the  cab  was  ordered  to  catch  the  four  thirty- 
five  from  Midhurst." 

Now  the  four  thirty-five  from  Midhurst  is  the  four 
forty-five  from  Selham,  the  train  that  Viola  had  gone  by. 
We  knew  this ;  and  Parker  knew  that  we  knew  it.  That 
was  why,  instead  of  stating  outright  that  Captain  Thesiger 
had  gone  by  that  train,  he  tried  to  soften  the  blow  to  us 
by  saying  that  the  cab  had  been  ordered  to  catch  it,  and 


230  THE  BELFRY 

leaving  it  open  to  us  to  suppose  that  perhaps,  after  all,  it 
might  have  missed  it. 

"Did  he  say  when  he  was  coming  back  ?"  I  asked,  again 
casually. 

"He  isn't  coming  back,  sir,"  said  Parker.  "He's  took 
his  luggage  with  him  and  all." 

"Of  course,"  said  Norah.  "He's  gone  to  see  what 
they're  doing  at  the  War  Office.  He  said  he  would." 

But  I  knew  and  she  knew  and  Parker  knew  he  hadn't — 
or,  if  he  had,  it  was  only  one  of  the  things  he  had  gone  for. 
Because,  if  the  War  Office  had  been  all  that  he  had  in  his 
mind  he  would  have  told  us,  and  Viola  would  have  told 
us,  and  they  would  have  gone  openly  together,  instead  of 
dodging  about  like  two  clumsy  criminals,  one  at  Midhurst 
and  the  other  at  Selham. 

When  Parker  had  left  (he  did  it  very  quickly)  Norah 
got  on  her  feet. 

She  said,  "Go  and  find  Kendal  and  tell  him  to  bring 
the  car  around  at  once." 

I  asked  her  what  she  was  going  to  do  ? 

"Do?"  she  flashed  at  me.  She  had  changed  all  in  a 
moment  into  a  woman  whom  I  did  not  know. 

"I'm  going  to  fetch  her  back,"  she  said.  She  had 
wriggled  into  her  coat.  "We'll  overtake  her  before  she 
gets  to  Selham,  if  you're  quick." 

I  looked  at  my  watch.  It  was  barely  half-past  four. 
Yes,  if  we  were  quick,  if  we  started  at  once,  if  we  let  the 
new  car  rip  we  should  overtake  her  on  the  road,  or  at  the 
station  before  she  could  get  into  that  train  with  Charlie 
Thesiger  in  it.  I  meant,  and  Borah's  eyes  meant,  that  we 
would  stop  her  going  with  him,  if  we  had  to  drag  her 
from  the  platform. 

We  ran  to  the  garage  to  find  Kendal.  The  new  car, 
the  superb  black  and  white  creature,  stood  in  the  middle 


HER  BOOK  231 

of  the  courtyard,  ready  to  start  when  Jimmy's  wire  came. 
So  far  it  was  all  right. 

But  we  had  reckoned  without  Kendal,  the  chauffeur. 

Kendal,  absolved  from  the  four-sixteen  train  at  Mid- 
hurst,  was  at  his  tea  in  the  servants'  hall,  and  at  my 
summons  he  came  out  slowly,  munching  as  he  came.  He 
was  visibly  outraged  at  our  intrusion  on  his  sacred  leisure. 
And  when  he  was  ordered  to  start  at  once  for  Selham,  he 
refused.  There  was  no  train  from  Victoria,  he  said, 
between  the  four-four  that  Mr.  Jevons  hadn't  come  by 
and  the  five  fifty-two.  //,  Kendal  said,  he  did  come  by 
Victoria,  and  he  always  came  by  Waterloo. 

What  was  the  sense,  said  Kendal,  with  his  mouth  full, 
of  going  to  Selham  when  we  hadn't  got  a  wire  ? 

The  sense  of  it,  Norah  told  him,  was  that  we  had  a 
message — an  important  message — for  Mrs.  Jevons,  which 
she  must  get  before  she  started. 

At  this  Kendal  left  off  munching  and  looked  at  my 
wife.  Even  in  my  eagerness  I  was  struck  by  the  singular 
intelligence  of  that  look.  There  was  nothing  covert  in 
it.  On  the  contrary  it  was  a  most  straightforward  and 
transparent  look.  Kendal's  knowledge — which  might  have 
sought  cover  if  you  had  hunted  it — had  come  out  to  meet 
ours  on  equal  terms. 

It  only  lasted  for  the  fraction  of  a  second.  Kendal 
repeated  firmly,  but  this  time  respectfully,  that  she  was 
Mr.  Jevons's  car  and  he  couldn't  take  her  out  without 
Mr.  Jevons's  orders,  for  if  he  did  Mr.  Jevons  would  give 
him  the  sack. 

To  which  Norah  replied  that  Mr.  Jevons  would  give 
him  the  sack  if  he  didn't,  or  if  he  made  us  miss  that  train 
by  arguing.  I  told  him  sternly  to  look  sharp.  He  looked 
it  and  we  got  off.  I  had  begun  to  crank  up  the  car  myself 
while  I  spoke. 


232  THE  BELFRY 

But  he  had  wasted  three  minutes  of  our  valuable  fifteen. 
Though  on  the  open  road  we  speeded  up  the  car  to  her 
sixty  miles  an  hour,  we  had  to  slow  down  in  the  narrow 
lanes.  Once  we  were  held  up  by  a  country  cart,  and 
once  by  cows  in  our  track,  and  IsTorah  was  beside  herself 
at  each  halt. 

As  we  careened  into  the  station  yard  I  thought  that  my 
wife  would  have  hurled  herself  out  of  the  car. 

The  station-master  stood  by  the  booking-office  door.  He 
had  an  ominous  air  of  leisure.  And  when  he  saw  us 
coming  he  looked  at  his  watch. 

He  told  us  that  we  had  missed  the  train  by  three 
minutes  (the  three  minutes  that  Kendal  had  wasted). 

I  had  jumped  out  of  the  car  and  was  telling  Kenda] 
that  it  was  all  his  fault,  and  that  if  he'd  done  what  he 
was  told  we  should  have  caught  the  train,  when  he  turned 
on  me  as  only  a  chauffeur  convicted  of  folly  can  turn. 

"Stand  away  from  the  car,  sir,"  he  shouted.  He  jerked 
her  nose  round  with  the  savage  energy  of  a  chauffeur  in 
the  wrong;  he  seemed  to  impart  his  own  fury  to  the  car. 
She  snorted  and  screamed  as  he  backed  her  and  drove  her 
forward  and  backed  her  again. 

And  again  he  shouted  to  me.  "You  get  in,  sir,  if  you 
don't  want  to  be  left  be'ind." 

As  he  seemed  to  be  animated  chiefly  by  the  fear  of 
Jevons  (whom,  by  the  way,  he  adored),  we  could  only 
suppose  that  his  idea  was  to  fly  back  to  Amershott  in  time 
for  Jimmy's  wire. 

On  the  high  road  past  the  station  he  took  the  wrong 
turn. 

I  shouted  then.  "What  do  you  think  you're  doing, 
you  confounded  fool?" 

"Ketch  the  London  train  at  'Orsham,  sir,"  said  Kendal. 
And  he  grinned. 


HER  BOOK  233 

"You  can't  do  it,"  we  said. 

"I'll  'ave  a  try,"  said  Kendal. 

His  honour  as  a  chauffeur  was  at  stake.  His  blood 
was  up.  His  knowledge  had  begun  to  work  in  him  and 
he  adored  his  master.  He  knew  what  he  was  trying 
to  do. 

We  could  do  it  if  we  kept  our  heads;  if  we  exceeded 
the  speed  limit ;  if  we  had  luck ;  if  we  didn't  break  down ; 
if  neither  the  county  constabulary  nor  the  country  traffic 
held  us  up. 

Kendal  declared  we  could  do  it  easily  and  allow  for 
accidents.  At  Horsham  Junction  you  have  nearly  half  an 
hour  to  wait  between  the  arrival  of  the  Midhurst  and 
Selham  train  and  the  departure  of  the  London  express. 
And  the  local  trains  take  more  than  half  an  hour  to  get 
from  Selham  to  Horsham.  At  a  pinch  you  could  speed 
the  car  up  to  the  limit  of  the  local  train.  And,  as  we  had 
to  allow  for  accidents,  we  did  speed  her  up  whenever  we 
saw  a  clean  track  before  us. 

The  run  to  Selham  was  nothing  to  it.  It  was  as  if 
we  were  racing  the  train  with  its  three  minutes  start,  as 
if,  positively,  we  might  overtake  it  at  any  of  the  inter- 
mediate stations,  as  if  it  were  in  this  hope  that  we  dashed 
up  the  long  white  slope  to  Petworth. 

The  heat  of  the  day  gathered  over  our  heads  and  smoul- 
dered in  the  east. 

And  as  we  ran  I  realized  at  last  why  we  were  running 
and  what  the  race  was  and  the  hunt,  and  what  our  quarry. 
I  remembered  that  other  slower  chase  that  was  yet  so 
keen  and  so  agonizing;  that  hunting  down  of  the  same 
tender  flesh  and  blood,  over  the  Channel  and  across  a 
foreign  country.  That  was  bad  enough;  but  it  was  not 
like  this.  For  then  I  was  alone  in  my  hunting  of  Viola ; 
there  was  nobody  but  me,  who  loved  her,  to  see  her  run 


234  THE  BELFRY 

to  earth  and  caught  crouching  in  her  corner.  That  she 
would  crouch,  this  time,  and  hide  herself,  I  had  no  doubt. 
This  hunt  that  I  shared  with  her  sister  and  her  servant 
was  abominable  to  me  and  shameful.  And  between  the 
shame  of  that  flight  of  hers  and  this  flight  there  was  no 
comparison.  You  don't  go  looking  at  belfries  with  Charlie 
Thesiger.  I  could  not  reconcile  that  enchanting  and 
enchanted  Viola  of  the  garden  of  Bruges  with  this  dread- 
ful flying  figure. 

I  hated  myself;  I  hated  Kendal,  the  chauffeur,  as  I 
sat  behind  his  tight,  efficient  body  that  quivered  with  the 
fury  of  the  hunt.  (To  think  that  his  blood  should  be  up 
and  against  Viola!)  I  hated  the  car  that  seemed  more 
than  ever  a  living  thing,  that  breathed  and  snorted  and 
vibrated  with  the  same  passion,  and  was  endowed  with 
this  incredible  speed  and  this  superhuman  power.  With 
its  black  nose  and  white  flanks,  and  its  black  hood  and 
the  black  wings  of  its  splash-boards,  it  was  some  terrible 
and  sinister  and  malignant  monster  of  prey  hunting  down 
Viola.  Its  body  had  been  built,  its  engines  had  been 
forged,  to  hunt  down  Viola.  The  infernal  thing  had  been 
invented  to  hunt  down  Viola. 

Somewhere  between  Petworth  and  Fittleworth  Kendal 
stopped  to  water  his  engine.  It  was  then  that  we  noticed 
how  the  gathering  heat  was  piled  into  a  bank  of  cloud 
over  the  east.  At  the  back  of  our  necks  we  could  feel 
a  little  hot  puff  of  wind  that  came  up  from  the  west. 

"Shouldn't  wonder  if  there  was  a  storm,"  said  Kendal. 
He  added,  with  the  ghost  of  a  grin,  "If  Mr.  Jevons  sees 
that  cloud,  sir,  he'll  not  wire  to  be  met  at  Midhurst.  He'd 
crawl  home  on  his  'ands  and  knees  first." 

He  slipped  into  his  seat  and  we  dashed  on. 

At  Fittleworth,  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  railway 
and  the  road,  there  is  a  patch  of  moor  where  the  ground 


HER  BOOK  235 

rises  in  a  hillock.  In  July  and  August  when  the  heather's 
out  this  hillock  is  a  crimson  landmark  above  the  water 
meadows. 

When  we  came  within  sight  of  it  Kendal  suddenly 
slowed  down,  then  jammed  his  brakes  hard,  and  with  an 
awful  grinding  and  snorting  the  car  came  to  a  stand-still. 

Kendal  stood  up.  He  muttered  something  about  being 
blowed.  Then  he  turned. 

"Got  the  glasses  there,  sir  ?" 

I  found  the  glasses,  but  I  didn't  give  them  to  Kendal. 
I  stood  up  too  and  looked  through  them. 

I  couldn't  see  anything  at  first. 

"There,  sir,"  said  Kendal,  pointing.  "No.  You're 
looking  too  much  to  the  left.  You  got  to  get  right  o' 
thet  sandy  patch — against  thet  there  clump  of  heather. 
Now  d'you  see,  sir?" 

I  did. 

Kendal  had  made  out  with  the  naked  eye  a  figure,  the 
figure  of  a  woman,  seated  on  the  hillside,  a  white  figure 
that  showed  plainly  against  the  red  background  of  the 
heather. 

"It's  Mrs.  Jevons,  sir,"  he  stated. 

It  was. 

I  could  see  her  quite  distinctly  through  the  field-glasses. 
She  was  sitting  on  the  clump  of  heather  to  the  right  of 
the  sandy  patch,  settled  and  motionless,  in  the  attitude 
of  one  who  waited  at  her  ease,  with  hours  before  her. 
And  she  was  alone. 

We  went  on  as  far  as  we  could  towards  the  moor. 
Norah  and  I  left  the  car  and  struck  across  the  moor  by 
the  sandy  track  that  led  to  the  bare  patch  and  the  clump 
of  heather. 

The  seated  figure  must  have  been  aware  of  us  from  the 
first  moment  of  our  approach.  You  couldn't  miss  that 


236  THE  BELFRY 

black  and  white  car  as  it  charged  along  the  highway,  or 
as  it  stood  now,  with  its  engines  still  humming,  by  the 
roadside.  But  the  figure  remained  seated  in  its  attitude 
of  waiting.  It  waited  while  we  crossed  the  moor;  and 
as  we  climbed  the  hillock  we  became  intensely  aware  of 
it  and  of  its  immobility. 

We  saw  its  face  fixed  on  us  with  an  expression  of  tran- 
quil patience  and  expectation.  I  may  say  that  I  felt  an 
intolerable  embarrassment  before  this  quietness  of  the 
hunted  thing  that  we  had  run  to  earth;  especially  as  it 
was  on  me,  and  not  Norah,  that  Viola's  face  was  fixed  as 
we  came  nearer. 

Then  she  smiled  at  me;  there  was  neither  conciliation 
nor  defiance  in  her  smile,  but  a  sort  of  serene  assurance 
and — yes,  it  was  unmistakable — contempt. 

She  said,  "Whatever  do  you  think  you're  doing  now?" 

I  said  we  might  not  know  what  we  were  doing,  but  we 
knew  what  we  were  going  to  do.  We  were  going  to  take 
her  back  with  us  in  the  car. 

At  that  she  asked  us  (but  without  any  sign  of  perturba- 
tion) if  we  had  got  Jimmy  there  ? 

Norah  said  ISTo,  our  idea  was  to  run  back  to  Amershott 
before  Jimmy  got  there. 

"Where  were  you  running  to  when  you  saw  me  sitting 
up  here?"  she  said. 

I  said  we'd  meant  to  catch  her  at  Selham  but  we  missed 
the  train  and  were  trying  to  get  to  Horsham  before  the 
London  train  started. 

She  was  looking  at  me  now  with  a  sort  of  compassion, 
the  tenderness  of  her  contempt. 

"I  see,"  she  said.     "You  were  clever,  weren't  you?" 

She  looked  at  her  watch.  "Well,  as  you  are  here," 
she  said,  "I'd  let  you  run  me  down  to  Horsham,  if  you 
want  a  run,  only  I  can't  very  well  use  Jimmy's  car." 


HER  BOOK  337 

I  think  it  was  ^Torah  who  asked  her  what  on  earth  she 
was  doing  at  Fittleworth. 

"Can't  you  see,"  she  said,  "that  I'm  waiting  for  the 
next  train  ?" 

"Did  you  walk  here  from  Amershott,  or  what?"  I 
said. 

She  said,  "Kather  not.    I  was  in  the  train." 

Then  Norah  said,  "What  happened  ?" 

It  had  dawned  on  us  both  how  odd  it  was  that  Viola 
should  be  here,  apparently  alone,  at  Fittleworth.  It  was 
also  odd  how  we  were  all  ignoring  Charlie.  I  believe  I 
had  a  sort  of  idea  that  she  had  got  him  hidden  somewhere 
in  the  landscape. 

Viola  smiled  a  reminiscent  smile.  "If  you  must  know," 
she  said,  "what  happened  was  that  Charlie  was  in  that 
train,  too — he  came  bursting  out  on  to  the  platform  at 
Selham,  awfully  pleased  with  himself,  because  he'd  picked 
my  luggage  up  at  Midhurst  and  bagged  a  corner  seat  for 
me,  and  made  faces  at  people  to  keep  them  out." 

"Did  you  know  he  was  going  up  to  town  ?"  I  said. 

"]STo,  of  course  I  didn't.  He  didn't  know  it  himself. 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't  go.  And  you'd 
have  thought  there  was  no  reason  why  we  shouldn't  go 
together.  He  was  all  right  till  we  got  to  Petworth.  But 
after  that  he  lost  his  head  and  made  such  an  ass  of  him- 
self that  I  had  to  get  out  here  and  make  him  go  on  by 
himself.  Silly  idiot!" 

We  were  sitting  in  the  heather,  one  on  each  side  of 
her,  and  I  saw  my  wife  slip  her  arm  into  hers  and  hug  it 
to  her. 

"Did  you  know,"  she  said,  "that  Charlie'd  gone?" 

We  didn't  answer.    We  simply  couldn't. 

And  then  Viola  said,  "Poor  little  Norah !" 


238  THE  BELFRY 

And  she  told  her  to  run  away  for  ten  minutes  while  she 
talked  to  me. 

"Why  poor  little  Norah?"  I  asked  when  we  were 
alone. 

"Because,"  she  said,  "you  frightened  her." 

"I?     Frightened  her?" 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "You  made  her  think  I  was  going 
to  run  away  with  Charlie.  There's  no  good  trying  to  look 
as  if  you  didn't.  You're  quite  awful,  Furny,  in  the  things 
you  think.  You  can't  help  it,  I  know.  You're  so  good, 
so  shockingly  good,  and  you  can't  bear  other  people  to 
be  naughty.  You  thought  I'd  run  away  to  Belgium  with 
Jimmy  and  you  came  rushing  after  me  and  fetched  me 
back.  You  thought  I'd  run  away  with  Charlie  and  you 
came  rushing — in  your  dreadful  rectitude,  and  in  Jimmy's 
motor-car  that  he  won't  let  anybody  look  at.  You'll  have 
an  awful  time  with  Jimmy  when  you  get  back.  It's  going 
to  rain,  and  there'll  be  mud  on  the  car,  and  he'll  dance 
with  rage  when  he  sees  it.  And  he  won't  think  it's  any 
excuse  if  you  tell  him  you  thought  I  was  running  away 
with  Charlie,  and  you  took  the  car  to  fetch  me  back; 
he'll  say  you'd  no  business  to  think  it  and  in  any  case 
you'd  no  business  to  take  the  car  out.  And  poor  Kendal 
will  be  sacked. 

"That's  all  you've  done,"  she  said,  "by  your  fussy 
interference." 

She  went  on.  "It  wouldn't  matter  what  you  think 
about  me — but  it  was  beastly  of  you  to  go  and  make 
Norah  think  it." 

I  said  I  didn't  suppose  either  of  us  thought  anything, 
except  that  since  she  was  going  up  to  town  with  the 
idea  of  leaving  her  husband,  it  was  not  desirable  that  she 
should  go  up  with  Charlie  Thesiger. 


HER  BOOK  239 

"Who  could  possibly  have  supposed,"  she  said,  "that 
Charlie  would  be  such  an  ass  ?" 

I  said  I  for  one  could. 

"Oh,  you — haven't  I  told  you  you're  always  supposing 
things  ?" 

"Surely  ?"  I  said,  "you  must  have  seen — yourself " 

She  smiled.  "My  dear — I  couldn't  see  anything  but 
poor  Jimmy." 

"And  yet,"  I  said,  "you  could  think  of  leaving  him  ?" 

She  moaned.  "You  fool — you  fool — that's  why  I'm 
thinking  of  it." 

She  pressed  her  hands  to  her  eyes  as  if  she  shut  back 
the  sight  of  him. 

"You  aren't  thinking  of  it,"  I  said.  "You  haven't 
left  him.  You've  only  been  for  a  good  long  walk  to  Fittle- 
worth,  and  we've  come  to  fetch  you  back  in  the  car." 

"Haven't  I  told  you  that  I  can't  and  won't  use  Jimmy's 
car?" 

"You  can't  use  it  to  run  away  from  him  in;  but  you 
can  very  well  use  it  to  go  back  to  him." 

"I'm  not  going  back  to  him,"  she  said.  "Can't  you 
see  that  I've  burnt  my  boats  ?" 

"You  may  have  burnt  the  old  ones,  Viola,"  I  said. 
"But  you  can  build  new." 

"You  must  give  me  time,  Wally.  It'll  take  a  long 
time.  And  you  don't  understand  me.  I  want  to  get  away 
from  Jimmy.  That's  why  I'm  going  away  now,  while  he 
isn't  there.  That's  what  I  mean  by  burning  my  boats. 
If  I  go  back  to  him — if  I  see  him — I  shall  never  get 
away.  I  shan't  have  the  courage.  I  shall  just  crumple 
up  with  the  first  sight  of  him — with  the  first  word  he 
says " 

"Why  not,"  I  said,  "crumple  up?" 

She  lifted  her  head  as  I  had  seen  her  lift  it  before. 


240  THE  BELFRY 

"Because,"  she  said,  "I  wish  to  be  straight." 

I  asked  her  if  running  away  behind  Jimmy's  back  was 
her  idea  of  straightness  ?  To  which  she  replied  that  my 
rectitude  was  excruciating  and  that  I'd  twist  anything 
to  a  moral  purpose,  but  it  was  twisting  all  the  same. 
Couldn't  I  see  that  the  awful  thing  would  be  to  come 
sneaking  back  and  pretend  to  Jimmy  that  she  hadn't 
run  away  from  him  ? — If  that  was  my  idea  of  straightness 
she  was  sorry  for  me. 

I  said,  "My  dear  child,  you  must  see  that  running  away 
by  yourself  is  one  thing,  and  running  away  with  Charlie 
Thesiger  is  another.  It  would  be  all  very  well  if  Charlie 
hadn't  got  into  that  train." 

She  wanted  to  know  what  that  mattered  when  she  had 
got  out  of  the  train  ?  I  suggested  that  the  people  who 
saw  Charlie  get  in  hadn't  seen  her  get  out,  and  that  she 
must  look  at  the  thing  as  it  appeared  to  other  people. 

"Look,"  I  said,  "at  the  facts.  Mrs.  Jevons  walks  to 
Selham  Station  for  the  London  train.  Captain  Thesiger 
joins  her  there,  presumably  by  pre-arrangement,  leaving 
by  Midhurst  station  so  that  they  may  not  be  seen  going 
away  together.  She  is,  however,  seen  entering  his  com- 
partment at  Selham.  At  Fittleworth  she  is  seized  with 
prudence  and  with  panic.  She  is  seen  getting  out  on  to 
the  platform.  And  she  is  seen  two  hours  later  following 
the  Captain  up  to  London  by  the  next  train." 

She  seemed  to  be  considering  it. 

"How  many  people,"  she  said,  "know  that  Charlie  was 
in  that  train  ?  People  that  matter — I  don't  mean  you  and 
Norah." 

'TTour  butler,  your  parlourmaid,  your  housemaid, 
your  cook,  your  gardener — by  this  time — and  Baby's 
nurse » 

("And  Baby,"  she  interrupted.) 


HER  BOOK  241 

-The  guard  of  the  train,  the  booking  clerks  and 


porters  at  Midhurst  and  Selham,  and  the  station-masters 
at  Midhurst  and  Selham  and  Petworth  (probably)  and 
Fittleworth.  Quite  a  number  of  important  people,  to  say 
nothing  of  Kendal,  who  is  perhaps  the  most  important  of 
them  all." 

"And  who  was  it  who  brought  Kendal  into  it  V 
I  was  silent. 

"Nobody  but  you,  Fumy,  or  a  bora  fool,  would  have 
dreamed  of  bringing  Kendal  in." 

I  said  that  a  little  reflection  would  show  her  that  it  was 
impossible  to  keep  him  out.  To  this  she  said,  "Please 
go  and  find  Norah.  I  want  her." 

I  found  Norah.  I  warned  her  that  Viola  was  going  to 
be  extremely  difficult.  She  said  it  would  be  all  right  if  I 
left  Viola  to  her. 

As  we  approached,  Viola  turned  to  her  sister  with  an 
air  of  outraged  and  long-suffering  dignity. 

"Norah,"  she  said.  "I  do  wish  you  would  make  Wally 
see  what  an  ass  he's  making  of  himself." 

My  wife  said,  in  her  admirable,  judicial  way,  "How 
an  ass?" 

"Well — trying  to  make  me  go  back  and  bringing  Kendal 
out  here  to  fetch  me.  He  doesn't  seem  to  see  that  if  I 
do  go  back  with  him  it'll  be  as  good  as  proclaiming  to 
everybody  that  I  ran  away  with  Charlie  and  was  found 
out  by  my  clever  brother-in-law  who  tracked  me  down 
in  my  husband's  motor-car  and  brought  me  back  in  it. 
Whereas,  if  I  go  quietly  on  to  London,  as  I  meant  to  and 
as  everybody  knows  I  meant  to,  it'll  be  all  right." 

"It  won't,"  I  said,  "as  long  as  Charlie's  there.  It  will 
be  if  you  come  home  with  us  in  the  car  now,  and  go  up 
to  town  with  Norah  and  me  on  Monday." 

"I've  told  you,"  she  said  wearily,  "that  I  can't  go 


242  THE  BELFRY 

back  because  I  stall  never  get  away  if  I  do.  And  I  must 
— I  must — and  I  will." 

"Yes,  dear,  and  you  shall,"  my  wife  said,  as  if  she  were 
humouring  somebody  who  was  mad. 

But  for  a  mad  woman  Viola,  I  must  say,  was  extraor- 
dinarily lucid. 

"What  excuse  did  you  give  to  Kendal  for  following  me 
in  this  way  ?" 

"We  told  him  we  had  an  important  message  to  give 
you  before  you  started." 

"Important  message !  That  was  pretty  thin.  I'd  have 
thought  of  something  cleverer  than  that  if  I'd  been  you. 
You  are  a  precious  pair  of  conspirators.  Can't  you  see 
that  it's  you — with  your  ridiculous  suspicions — that  have 
given  me  away  ?" 

Norah  answered  her. 

"Oh,  Vee-Vee,"  she  said,  "we  hadn't  any  suspicions. 
The  message  was  to  tell  you  that  Charlie  was  in  the  train. 
We  knew  you  didn't  know  it." 

To  this  Viola  said  coldly,  "Walter  didn't." 

I  tried  to  reassure  her,  but  she  waved  me  away  with 
her  hands  and  implored  me  to  "let  her  think." 

"Well,-"  she  said  presently,  "it  isn't  as  bad  as  you've 
tried  to  make  it,  even  with  Kendal  thrown  in.  You  came 
rushing  after  me  to  give  me  a  message,  and  you  have 
given  me  a  message,  and  now  you'll  go  and  tell  Kendal 
that  it's  all  right,  and  thank  him  nicely  for  catching  me 
up,  and  you  rush  home  again,  and  /  go  on  quietly  to 
London  by  the  next  train." 

"Yes,  dear,"  said  Norah.  "And  I'm  going  up  with  you 
while  Wally  rushes  home  and  follows  with  Nurse  and 
Baby  and  the  luggage  by  the  morning  train." 

"That's  all  very  well,"  said  Viola,  "but  who  explains  to 
Jimmy  2" 


HER  BOOK  243 

"Oh,"  said  my  wife,  "Wally  does  that.  You  can  trust 
him.  Besides  you  haven't  got  to  explain  things  to 
Jimmy." 

Well,  we  settled  it  that  way.  It  was  the  only  possible 
solution.  The  more  she  thought  of  it,  Viola  said,  the  more 
she  liked  it.  And  she  rubbed  it  into  me  that  it  was 
Norah's  solution,  and  not  mine. 

Her  last  words  to  me  as  I  saw  them  off  at  Fittleworth 
Station  were  that  I  needn't  worry.  It  was  going  to  rain. 
And  when  poor  Jimmy  saw  his  car  come  in  all  splashed 
with  rain  and  covered  with  mud — "It  won't  be  me,"  she 
said,  "you'll  have  to  explain  about." 

And  it  wasn't. 

The  storm  came  down  just  as  we  were  leaving  Fittle- 
worth, and  we  brought  that  car  back  in  an  awful  state. 
You  wouldn't  have  known  it  had  ever  been  a  black-and- 
white  car.  And  Jevons  (in  a  mackintosh)  was  waiting 
for  me  in  the  lane  by  the  courtyard  gates.  He  had  caught 
the  early  train,  but  he  had  seen  the  storm  coming  and  had 
walked  up  from  Midhurst,  and,  as  I  say,  he  was  waiting 
for  us. 

Well — neither  Viola  nor  Norah  was  with  us,  and  the 
language  that  Jimmy  poured  out  over  me  and  Kendal 
recalled  all  the  freshness  and  the  vigour  of  his  earliest 
inspirations;  it  was  steeped,  you  might  say,  in  all  the 
colours  of  the  sunset;  it  had  flashes  of  tropic  splendour; 
it  was  such  a  gorgeous  specimen  of  an  art  in  which  Kendal 
dabbled,  as  he  said  modestly,  a  little  himself,  that  it  "fair 
took  the  shine  out  of  him."  The  chauffeur  was  prostrated 
with  admiration. 

"When  Mr.  Jevons  lays  himself  out  to  express  himself, 
sir,"  he  said  to  me  as  we  retreated,  "he  pulls  it  off  what 
you  may  call  a  bleedin'  masterpiece." 

I  tried  to  explain  about  Viola  an  hour  later.     But  he 


244  THE  BELFRY 

wouldn't  listen  to  me.     That  was  all  right,  he  said.     He 

was  going  to  ask  us  to  take  her  for  a  month  or  so  anyhow. 

It  was  getting  a  bit  stuffy  for  her  down  here. 

Then  he  fixed  me  with  "Did  Thesiger  go  up  with  her  V 
There  was  no  good  trying  to  lie  to  Jevons,  so  I  said  that 

had  been  Thesiger's  idea,  but  Viola  hadn't  cared  much 

about  having  him,  for  she  had  got  out  at  Fittleworth  and 

taken  Norah  on  with  her. 

"I  suppose  the  young  ass  tried  to  make  love  to  her. 

He's  fool  enough  for  anything,"  said  Jimmy.     But  he 

reverted.     "I  still  can't  see  why  you  took  the  car  out. 

Anybody  but  an  idiot  would  have  known  it  was  going  to 

rain." 


BOOK   HI 
HIS  BOOK 


BOOK  III 

HIS  BOOK 

XII 

AT  this  period,  and  even  now  when  I  go  back  to  it,  I 
am  completely  puzzled  by  Jevons.  Here  was  a  man  who 
professed  to  understand  his  wife,  to  know  what  she  was 
feeling  and  thinking  in  every  moment  of  her  existence; 
he  would  tell  you  that  a  man  was  a  fool  if  he  couldn't 
get  the  woman  he  wanted;  and  yet,  having  got  her,  he 
didn't  seem  to  know  in  the  most  elementary  way  how  to 
keep  her.  He  didn't  seem  to  care.  He  adored  her,  and 
yet  he  didn't  seem  to  care.  I  believe  he  knew  that  she 
was  leaving  him,  that  she  had  left  him ;  and  yet,  here  he 
was,  treating  her  departure  as  if  it  didn't  matter,  as  if  it 
were  the  most  natural  and  reasonable  thing  in  the  world, 
and  lashing  himself  into  a  fury  about  his  wretched  motor- 
car. And  he  was  treating  the  dangerous  element  in  the 
case,  Charlie  Thesiger,  as  if  it  didn't  matter  either ;  as  if 
it  didn't  exist.  He  must  have  known  we'd  taken  his  car 
out  to  bring  his  wife  back — he  knew  we  wouldn't  have 
touched  the  beastly  thing  for  anything  short  of  saving  her 
life  or  his  honour;  and  yet  he  had  flown  into  a  passion 
and  sworn  at  his  chauffeur  because  we'd  taken  it.  He 
adored  his  wife  and  yet  he  behaved  as  if  she  were  of  no 
importance  compared  with  the  god  he'd  made  of  his 
motor-car. 

All  that  evening,  I  remember,  he  was  absorbed  in  the 
solitary  problem  of  how  he  could  save  his  god  from  further 
outrages.  He  settled  it  towards  midnight  by  saying  that 
he'd  buy  another  car  that  we  could  do  what  we  damn- 

247 


248  THE  BELFRY 

pleased  with — a  car  that  wouldn't  matter — that  you  could 
take  out  in  all  weathers. 

"I'll  not  have  that  black-and-white  car  used  as  it  was 
used  this  afternoon,"  he  said.  And  after  lashing  himself 
up  again  he  ended  quite  sweetly  by  saying,  "It's  my  fault, 
Furny.  I  ought  to  have  had  two  cars  all  along." 

I  said  it  woidd  be  a  good  plan,  if  a  black-and-white  car 
was  only  to  be  looked  at. 

He  admitted  (with  a  recrudescence  of  his  old  childlike 
innocence)  that  he  liked  looking  at  it.  I've  no  doubt 
he  said  it  made  him  feel  something,  but  I  forget  what. 

But  when  the  morning  came  he  wouldn't  hear  of  my 
going.  I  was  to  stay  out  my  fortnight.  It  was  a  fine 
day  and  the  dust  was  laid ;  perhaps  he  could  take  me  for 
a  spin  across  the  Downs  to  the  coast  or  somewhere.  He'd 
send  Parker  up  to  town  to  look  after  Nurse  and  Baby  and 
the  luggage.  He  didn't  want,  he  said,  to  be  left  alone. 

Oh  yes,  it  was  plain  to  me  that  he  didn't  want  to  be  left 
— that  he  couldn't  bear  it.  He  was  trying  to  lure  me  to 
stay  with  him  by  holding  out  this  prospect  of  a  spin. 
I  have  since  believed  that  he  would  have  agreed  to  take 
his  car  out  in  almost  any  weather,  if  that  had  been  the 
only  way  to  keep  me.  He  clung  to  me  desperately,  pa- 
thetically, as  he  had  clung  nine  years  ago  at  Bruges  when 
Viola  had  left  him  there.  He  might,  possibly,  this  time, 
have  clung  to  anybody;  he  was  so  afraid  of  being  left 
alone.  I  think  he  felt  that  loneliness  here,  in  the  vast, 
unfamiliar  landscape  that  he  had  invaded,  would  be  as 
bad  as  loneliness  in  Bruges.  He  would  be  abandoned,  aa 
he  had  been  then,  in  a  foreign  country. 

So  till  Sunday  morning  I  stayed  with  him. 

It  was  on  my  last  evening,  the  evening  of  Saturday, 
August  the  first,  that  he  spoke  of  Viola. 

He  asked  me  if  I  thought  that  Norah  and  I  could  keep 


HIS  BOOK  249 

her  with  us,  if  necessary,  for— he  hesitated — for  six 
months  ?  (It  was  as  if  he  had  given  her  six  months.)  It 
would,  he  said,  be  better. 

I  said  that  Norah  would  be  delighted  to  keep  her  for 
any  number  of  months.  But  did  he  think  she'd  stay  ? 

He  said  why  shouldn't  she  stay  ?  Of  course  she'd  stay. 
She  was  awfully  fond  of  us  and  it  was  the  best  thing  she 
could  do.  And  it  would  make  it  so  much  easier  for  him. 
He'd  feel  more  comfortable  as  long  as  he  knew  she  was 
with  us. 

He  spoke  as  if  it  were  he  and  not  Viola  who  was  leav- 
ing. 

I  said  then  that  though  we  were  glad  to  have  her  we 

couldn't,  of  course,  accept  any  responsibility 

He  smiled  slightly  and  asked,  "For  what  ?" 
I  said,  "Well "     And  he  answered  his  own  ques- 
tion in  the  pause  I  made. 

"I  suppose  you  mean  for  anything  she  may  take  it  into 
her  head  to  do?" 

I  put  it  to  him  that  Viola's  movements  were  not  always 
exactly  calculable.  She  might  take  it  into  her  head  to  do 
anything.  I  really  couldn't  answer  for  her. 

"You  can't,"  he  said.  "But  I  can.  She  may  go  off 
and  look  at  a  belfry  or  two."  (I  should  have  said  that 
"looking  at  the  belfry"  was  a  phrase  the  family  had 
adopted  for  any  queer  thing  that  any  of  us  might  do.) 
"If  there's  a  belfry  anywhere  to  be  seen  you  may  depend 
upon  it  she'd  want  to  look  at  it." 

"Whether,"  I  said,  "it's  in  a  dangerous  place  or  not  ?' 
"Whether  it's  in  a  dangerous  place  or  not.     But  I'll 
trust  you  to  keep  her  out  of  dangerous  places.     That's 
rather  what  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  about." 

I  protested.  "There's  no  good  talking  about  it.  I've 
told  you  that's  just  precisely  the  responsibility  I  won't 


250  THE  BELFRY 

take.  And  I  won't  let  Norah  take  it.  If  you  think  there's 
going  to  be  any  danger  you  must  look  after  your  own  wife 
yourself." 

"My  dear  fellow,  how  can  I  look  after  her  if  I'm  not 
here?" 

"You're  as  much  here  as  I  am,"  I  said.  "More  so. 
And  she's  your  wife,  not  mine." 

I  can  say  now — there's  no  reason  why  I  shouldn't;  it 
would  only  amuse  Jimmy  if  he  were  to  see  it  written — I 
can  say  now  that  for  one  awful  moment  I  suspected  Jimmy 
of  meditating  an  infidelity.  Perhaps  he  was;  but  not  as 
we  count  infidelity. 

He  ignored  what  I  took  to  be  the  essence  of  the  thing. 

"We  don't  know,"  he  said,  "where  any  of  us  are  going 
to  be  for  the  next  four  months — or  the  next  four  years. 
I  know  that  I  jolly  well  shan't  be  here.  What  I  want  to 
propose  is  this:  that  you'll  look  after  Viola  and  let  her 
have  your  house  when  she  wants  to  be  in  town ;  and  that 
you  have  this  house  for  yourself  and  Norah  and  Baby 
when  you  want  to  be  in  the  country — just  as  if  it  was 
your  own.  There'll  be  that  other  motor-car  you  can  have 
— as  if  it  was  your  own.  You  can  run  up  to  town  in  it. 
And  you'll  probably  find  that  the  country  will  be  the  best 
place  for  you.  It'll  be  much  the  best  place  for  them,  and 
the  safest — if  you  aren't  here." 

I  couldn't  see  it  even  then.  I  said,  "My  dear  chap,  why 
shouldn't  I  be  here  ?  I  certainly  mean  to  be  here." 

And  he  considered  it  and  said,  "I  don't  see  why  not. 
It's  different  for  you.  You've  got  a  child  and  I  haven't." 

I  said  I  couldn't  see  what  Baby  had  to  do  with  it. 

And  he  replied  that  a  young  child  was  an  infernal 
complication,  and  that  he  was  jolly  glad  he  hadn't  got  one. 
What  Baby  had  to  do  with  it  was  to  keep  me  out  of  it. 

Then  I  asked  him  what  on  earth  he  was  talking  about. 


HIS  BOOK  251 

He  said,  "I'm,  talking  about  the  European  conflagra- 
tion. What  are  you  ?" 

He  had  been  talking  about  it  all  the  time,  he  had  been 
thinking  of  nothing  but  the  European  conflagration  for 
the  last  four  days.  It  was  the  thing,  he  said,  that  he  had 
prophesied  nine  years  ago — didn't  I  remember  ?  (Oh  yes, 
I  remembered ;  but  then,  he  was  always  prophesying  some- 
thing.) Well  then,  here  it  was.  And  it  had  come,  by 
God,  at  the  very  date  he  had  given  it. 

I  can  see  him  sitting  there  in  his  study  at  Amershott 
Old  Grange.  He  was  deadly  quiet.  Not  a  gesture  came 
to  disturb  my  sense  of  his  tranquil  triumph  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  prophecy.  To  say  that  he  enjoyed  the  Euro- 
pean conflagration  because  it  had  proved  him  so 
abundantly  right  would  give  a  false  impression  of  an 
extraordinary  and  complicated  state  of  mind.  There  was 
a  sort  of  exaltation  about  him  (his  face  positively  shone, 
as  if  the  European  conflagration  illuminated  it  from 
afar)  ;  but  it  was  a  holy  and  a  sacred  exaltation,  pure  from 
egoism,  except  that  he  saw  himself — there's  no  doubt 
that  already  he  did  see  himself — figuring. 

I  remember  saying,  as  lots  of  people  were  saying  then, 
that  I  didn't  suppose  for  a  moment  we  should  be  dragged 
into  it. 

"Dragged?"  he  said.  "Dragged?  We  shall  be  in  it 
without  dragging — in  the  very  thick." 

From  the  instant  the  Germans  broke  into  Luxembourg 
— and  he  gave  them  twenty-four  hours — we  should  be  in 
it.  We  couldn't  keep  out  with  a  rag  of  honour  to  our 
names.  France,  he  declared,  would  be  in  to-day.  He 
gave  us,  I  think — but  I  do  not  like  to  say  positively  that 
he  gave  us — three  days;  he  couldn't  have  been  as  dead 
right  as  all  that. 

What  struck  me  then  as  so  extravagantly  odd  was,  not 


252  THE  BELFRY 

that  he  had  foreseen  the  war,  and  England's  part  in  it, 
but  that  he  should  have  seen  himself  there,  in  the  thick — 
blazing  away  in  the  very  middle  of  the  conflagration. 
What  on  earth  Jimmy  conceived  that  Tie  should  have  to 
do  with  it  I  couldn't  think.  And  all  of  a  sudden  I  had  a 
reminiscence  of  Jevons  as  I  had  seen  him  nine  years  ago, 
talking  to  Reggie  Thesiger  in  Viola's  rooms  at  Hampstead, 
prophesying  war,  and  lamenting  that  he  wouldn't  be  in  it 
because  he  was  an  arrant  coward. 

And  as  I  looked  at  him  again  I  saw  that  what  made  his 
face  shine  like  that  was  the  sweat  that  had  broken  out  on 
it. 

Then  he  made  a  remark  about  Charlie  Thesiger.  Thesi- 
ger, he  said,  knew  all  about  it.  He  had  gone  up — he  sup- 
posed I  knew  that  ? — to  offer  his  services  to  the  War  Office 
in  the  event  of  England's  coming  in. 

That  Charlie  had  used  the  opportunity  of  going  to  make 
love  to  Jimmy's  wife  didn't  seem  to  bother  Jimmy  in  the 
least. 

Sunday,  I  remember,  was  a  fine  day,  with  all  the  dust 
laid,  and  Jimmy  made  himself  lovable  by  running  me  up 
to  London  in  his  sacred  car.  He  still  clung — I  could  see 
that  he  clung — to  the  superstition  of  its  sanctity. 

He  left  me  at  my  door  in  Edwardes  Square,  which  he 
refused  to  enter.  I  think  he  was  afraid  of  seeing  Viola. 
I  thought  at  the  time  that  this  was  because  he  was  aware 
of  her  attitude;  that  he  knew  she  was  at  the  end  of  her 
tether,  and  that  he  wanted  to  be  righteously  fair,  to  give 
her  time  to  think  about  leaving  him,  if  she  wanted  to  leave 
him;  that  he  was  behaving  now  as  he  had  behaved  at 
Bruges  when  he  stood  back  and  let  me  have  my  innings, 
and  gave  her  her  chance  to  free  herself.  And  yet  I  was 
puzzled.  Even  he  could  hardly  stand  back  to  give  Thesiger 


HIS  BOOK  253 

an  innings.  He  may  have  had  an  inkling.  There  may 
have  been  something  of  his  queer,  scrupulous  tenderness 
in  this  avoidance  of  her ;  there  may  have  been  his  reckless 
propensity  to  take  the  risk ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  even 
then  his  main  object  was — like  Viola — to  burn  his  boats. 
He  was  afraid  that  if  he  were  to  see  Viola  again  he 
wouldn't  be  able  to  go  through  with  it.  He  may  even  have 
been  glad  that  she  had  left  him,  because  it  had  made 
his  way  easier. 

And  so,  when  he  had  landed  me  at  my  door,  he  turned 
the  black  nose  of  his  car  round  and  ran  out  of  Edwardes 
Square  faster  than  he  had  run  in;  as  if  he  were  afraid 
that  the  place  would  catch  and  keep  him. 

He  didn't  go  back  to  Amershott.  He  stayed  in  London 
in  one  of  his  clubs  (he  had  several  now,  besides  the  club 
in  Dover  Street) ,  and  I  saw  him  sometimes.  I  didn't  say 
anything  to  Viola  about  him.  I  didn't  tell  her  he  was  in 
town.  It  was  as  if  there  had  been  some  tacit  understand- 
ing among  the  three  of  us ;  there  must  have  been  some  tacit 
agreement  between  him  and  me. 

Sunday  passed,  and  Monday  somehow ;  and  on  Tuesday, 
the  fourth,  we  were  all  holding  our  breaths  under  the 
tension  of  the  Ultimatum. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  in  those  three  days  I  had  some 
opinion  of  my  own  about  the  European  conflagration, 
that  I  must  have  stared  with  my  own  eyes  sometimes  at 
the  fate  of  Europe  and  the  fate  of  England,  that  I  must 
have  felt  some  horror  and  anxiety  and  excitement  that 
was  my  own.  But  as  I  look  back  on  it  all  I  am  aware 
chiefly  of  Jevons,  of  his  opinions,  his  vision,  his  horror 
and  excitement.  I  seem  to  have  spent  the  greater  part 
of  those  three  days  with  Jevons,  and  there  are  moments, 
in  looking  back,  when  he  fills  the  scene.  He  is  the  largest 
and  most  prominent  figure  in  the  crowd  that  walked  the 


254  THE  BELFRY 

streets  with  me  on  the  evening  of  the  Ultimatum,  that 
waited  with  me  outside  Buckingham  Palace,  when  Lon- 
don let  itself  loose  in  madness;  he  seems  the  only  sane 
figure  in  that  crowd  or  in  the  processions  that  moved  for 
hours  on  end  up  and  down  Parliament  Street,  between 
Trafalgar  Square  and  Palace  Yard.  It  is  as  if  I  had 
stood  alone  with  Jevons  before  the  Mansion  House  at  mid- 
night when  the  Ultimatum  was  declared. 

And  when  I  say  that  it  was  his  horror  and  anxiety  and 
excitement — and  his  defiance  and  exaltation,  if  you  like — 
that  I  felt,  I  do  not  mean  that  Jevons  talked  about  it.  He 
was,  for  those  three  days,  mostly  silent.  It  is  that  I  saw 
him  consumed  and  burned  up  by  the  fever  of  patriotism 
and  war,  and  that  beside  his  passion  any  emotion  I  may 
have  felt  hardly  counted. 

And  every  minute  we  expected  to  hear  him  say  that  he 
liked  the  War  because  it  made  him  feel  manly.  Norah  and 
I  pretended  to  each  other  that  he  would  say  it — it  was 
our  idea  of  a  joke,  God  forgive  us. 

It  was  on  Wednesday,  the  fifth,  very  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, that  he  began  trying  to  enlist.  It  was  the  first  thing 
he  did ;  and  we  thought  that  funny. 

We  thought  it  so  funny  that  even  if  he  hadn't  told  us 
not  to  tell  Viola  we  wouldn't  have  told  her;  we  felt  that 
it  wouldn't  have  been  quite  fair  to  either  of  them. 

And  none  of  the  Thesigers,  or  anybody  connected  with 
the  Thesigers,  could  take  Jimmy  seriously  for  one  moment. 
With  General  Thesiger  waiting  to  be  sent  to  the  Front, 
and  Reggie  Thesiger  preparing  to  go,  and  Charlie  Thesi- 
ger who  might  be  called  on  any  day,  with  Bertie  and  all 
his  male  cousins  enlisting  and  pulling  all  the  ropes  they 
could  lay  their  hands  on  to  get  their  commissions,  they 
hadn't  time  for  Jimmy  and  his  importunity.  He  was 
importunate;  and  I'm  afraid  that  in  those  weeks  Jimmy 


HIS  BOOK  255 

didn't  exist  for  them  or  any  of  us,  except  as  a  jest  that 
lightened  our  labours  now  and  then.  They  were  so  busy 
getting  their  kits  that  they  couldn't  even  think  of  the  fate 
of  Europe. 

And  Viola — what  she  was  thinking  and  feeling  God  (or 
Jevons)  only  knew.  She  didn't  tell  us.  But  I  was  pretty 
sure  that  with  Reggie  starting  for  the  front  in  two  weeks 
it  wasn't  Jevons  she  was  thinking  of.  I  suspected  that 
she  wasn't  fax  from  feeling  that  secret  hatred  of  Jimmy 
that  had  come  to  her  once  or  twice  before,  when  she  had 
thought  of  Reggie.  Remember  that  all  this  time,  even 
after  that  illness  of  hers  last  year,  when  she  and  Reggie 
met  they  met  as  well-bred  strangers.  She  had  never  low- 
ered her  flag  or  made  one  sign.  She  had  just  suffered 
in  secret  with  the  thought  of  Reggie  biting  deeper  and 
deeper  into  her  mind,  till,  wherever  the  memory  of  Reggie 
was  there  was  a  wound.  And  she  had  been  ill  of  her 
wounds  and  had  nearly  died  of  them. 

And  in  those  two  weeks  she  had  begun  to  look  as  if  she 
were  going  to  be  ill  again.  It  was  bad  enough  for  Norah 
and  for  all  of  them,  but  conceive  what  it  must  have  been 
for  her ! 

And  so  we  came  to  Reggie's  last  day  and  the  night  when 
he  came  to  us  to  say  good-bye. 

I  think  she  must  have  written  to  him  or  made  some  sign. 
But  I'm  not  sure.  I  only  know  that  he  was  prepared  for 
her;  and  that  when  she  came  into  the  room  at  the  last 
minute,  as  he  turned  from  Borah's  arms,  he  closed  on  her, 
and  that  they  held  each  other  an  instant — tight,  like  lovers 
— and  that  neither  of  them  said  a  word. 

After  that  the  War  must  have  seemed  to  her,  as  it 
seemed  to  all  of  us,  to  have  wiped  Jimmy  out. 

Just  at  first  we  thought  that  this  was  the  secret  of  Jim- 


256  THE  BELFRY 

my's  agony,  of  his  rushings  round  and  round,  and  of  his 
ceaseless  manoeuvring.  He  knew  that  the  War  was  going 
to  wipe  him  out;  he  knew  that  the  world  had  no  use  for 
his  sort,  the  men  who  only  wrote  things.  There  was  an 
end  of  his  writing,  of  his  novels  and  his  short  stories 
and  his  plays,  and  if  he  didn't  look  out  and  do  something 
there  would  be  an  end  of  him.  And  he  couldn't  bear  it. 
He  couldn't  bear  to  be  reduced  to  inactivity  and  insignifi- 
cance— to  be  wiped  out.  He  wasn't  going  to  be  made  an 
end  of  if  he  could  help  it.  These  were  the  things  we 
said  about  him.  What  we  saw,  or  thought  we  saw,  was  the 
revolt  of  his  egoism.  It  didn't  look  quite  sane. 

He  was  furious  when  he  found  out  that,  even  if  he  en- 
listed, he  couldn't  buy  a  commission.  He  didn't  seem  to 
realize  that  there  were  things  he  couldn't  buy.  He  was 
still  more  furious  when  he  found  that  the  Thesigers 
wouldn't  help  him.  They  could  help  him,  he  declared,  if 
they  liked.  Commissions  were  being  given  every  day  to 
the  wrong  people,  by  influence. 

Up  till  now,  with  his  talk  about  commissions,  he  had 
been  purely  funny,  and  we  had  laughed  at  him.  But 
when  he  found  that  he  couldn't  enlist,  that  they  wouldn't 
have  him,  that  he  wasn't  strong  enough — they'd  discovered 
a  leaky  valve  in  his  heart  or  something — and  that  in  any 
case  he  was  too  old,  when  he  broke  down  as  he  tried  to 
tell  me  this,  he  wasn't  funny  at  all.  He'd  been  to  every 
recruiting  station  in  London  and  his  own  county,  and  they 
all  said  the  same  thing.  He  was  too  old. 

This,  he  said,  was  where  his  beastly  celebrity  had  gone 
back  on  him.  He  could  very  easily  have  lied  about  his 
age  (he  didn't  look  it),  in  fact,  he  had  lied  about  it  freely, 
to  every  one  of  them;  but  his  age  was  recorded  against 
him  in  the  Year-Books  of  his  craft.  And  he  couldn't  lie 
about  his  heart,  he  didn't  know  it  had  a  valve  that  leaked. 


HIS  BOOK  257 

He  didn't  believe  it.  He  had  given  the  man  who  ex- 
amined it  the  lie;  and  he  had  gone  to  a  heart-specialist 
to  get  the  report  (which  he  regarded  as  a  libel)  contra- 
dicted, and  the  heart-specialist  had  confirmed  it,  and  told 
him  he  wasn't  the  first  man  who  had  come  to  him  to  get 
an  opinion  overruled.  He  said  he  was  to  keep  quiet  and 
avoid  excitement.  He  mustn't  dream  of  going  to  the 
front.  I  think  the  specialist  must  have  been  sorry  for 
Jevons,  for  he  went  on  to  tell  him  that  there  were  other 
ways  in  which  he  could  serve  his  country.  He  seems  to 
have  talked  a  lot  of  rot  about  the  pen  being  mightier  than 
the  sword,  and  to  have  advised  Jimmy  to  "use  his  won-- 
derful  pen."  And  at  that  Jimmy  seems  to  have  broken 
from  him  in  a  passion. 

And  here  he  was,  in  a  passion  still,  ramping  up  and 
down  that  private  room  he  had  at  his  club,  and  saying, 
"Damn  my  powerful  pen,  Furny!  Damn  my  powerful 
pen!"  The  whole  system,  he  said,  was  rotten.  He'd  a 
good  mind  to  expose  it.  He'd  expose  it  in  the  papers. 
That  was  the  use  he'd  make  of  his  powerful  pen.  See 
how  they'd  like  that. 

I  remember  it  because  it  was  then  that  I  laid  before 
him  my  own  problem.  The  Daily  Post  had  asked  me  if 
I'd  go  out  as  its  War-Correspondent.  I  was  to  wire  "Yes" 
or  "No"  in  the  next  half-hour,  and  if  I  went  I  should 
have  to  start  to-night. 

I  said  I  didn't  know  what  to  do  about  it. 

He  stared.     "You  don't  know  what  to  do?" 

I  said :  No.  It  wasn't  so  simple  when  you  had  a  wife 
and  child  dependent  on  you.  I  didn't  know  whether  I 
ought  to  take  the  risk. 

And  then  he  said  his  memorable  thing:  "If  you  can 
take  the  risk  of  living — My  God,"  he  said,  "if  I  only  had 
your  luck !" 


258  THE  BELFRY 

His  luck,  I  told  him,  was  a  dead  certainty.  There 
wasn't  a  paper  that  would  refuse  Tasker  Jevons  as  War- 
Correspondent.  He'd  only  got  to  volunteer.  Why  on 
earth,  I  asked  him,  didn't  he  ? 

He  became  very  grave.    He  seemed  to  be  considering  it. 

"No,"  he  said,  "no.  That  isn't  quite  good  enough  for 
me.  I  don't  want  to  go  out  to  the  war  to  write  about  it. 
I  want  to  do  things. 

"Perhaps — if  there's  no  other  way — I  may  be  driven  to 
it." 

For  a  moment,  then,  I  suspected  him.  I  doubted  his 
sincerity.  He  was  making  all  this  fuss  about  enlisting 
to  cover  up  his  cowardice.  He  must  have  known  all  the 
time  they  wouldn't  take  him.  He  was  safe.  But  put  be- 
fore him  a  thing  he  could  do — do  better  than  anybody 
else — a  thing  that  would  take  him  into  the  thick  and 
keep  him  there,  if  he  wasn't  killed,  and  he  said,  No,  thank 
you.  That  wasn't  quite  good  enough  for  him. 

I  didn't  believe  in  his  "Perhaps — if  there  was  no  other 
way — he  might  be  driven  to  it."  I  saw  him  driven  to  do 
anything  he  didn't  mean  to  do ! 

Meanwhile  he  drove  me.  Before  I  had  seen  him  I 
hadn't  really  meant  to  take  that  job.  He  did  something 
to  me  that  changed  my  mind. 

That  was  how  I  went  out  to  Belgium  as  a  War-Corre- 
spondent. 

I  was  out  for  a  month.  Then — I  was  in  Ghent  at  the 
same  old  hotel  in  the  Place  d'Armes — I  got  a  touch  of 
malaria  and  had  to  come  home,  and  the  Daily  Post  sent 
another  man  out  instead  of  me. 

That  was  how  I  managed  to  see  Jevons  in  what  Norah 
called  his  second  war-phase.  He  had  been  trying  hard 
to  get  out  with  the  Red  Cross  volunteers,  and  it  had  been 


HIS  BOOK  259 

even  funnier,  she  said,  and  more  pathetic,  than  his  enlist- 
ing. I  don't  know  what  Viola  thought  of  his  war-phases ; 
to  N"orah  they  were  just  that — funny  and  pathetic.  To 
the  other  Thesigers  he  was  purely  offensive.  They  re- 
sented Jevons's  trying  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
war,  as  if  it  had  been  some  sort  of  impertinent  interfer- 
ence with  their  prerogative.  His  mother-in-law,  I  know, 
had  no  patience  with  him.  His  frantic  efforts  to  get  to 
the  front  were  nothing,  she  declared,  but  a  form  of  war- 
panic.  It  took  some  people  like  that.  She  said  the  only 
really  cruel  thing  I  had  ever  heard  her  say  of  him.  She 
said  he  looked  panic-stricken.  (He  was  lean  and  haggard 
by  this  time,  and  had  a  haunted  look  which  may  have  been 
what  she  meant.)  And  well — if  it  wasn't  panic  that  was 
the  matter  with  him  it  was  self-advertisement,  and  if  I'd 
any  regard  for  him  or  any  influence  with  him  I'd  stop  it. 
The  little  man  was  simply  making  himself  ridiculous. 

I  was  staying  in  Canterbury  with  Norah  for  the  week- 
end, and  I  heard  all  about  it.  He  did  seem  to  have  been 
rather  funny.  He  had  begun  with  a  scheme  for  taking 
out  a  Red  Cross  Motor  Field  Ambulance  which  he  pro- 
posed to  command  in  person.  He  had  offered  himself  with 
his  convoy  first  to  the  War  Office,  then  to  the  Admiralty, 
then  to  the  War  Office  again,  and  the  War  Office  and  the 
Admiralty  kicked  him  out.  Then  he  had  gone  round  to 
each  of  the  Red  Cross  Societies  in  turn,  the  American 
included.  And  they  had  all  got  their  own  schemes  for 
Motor  Field  Ambulances,  and  didn't  want  his.  What 
they  did  want  was  his  subscriptions  and  his  powerful  pen 
to  support  their  schemes.  And  Jevons  had  said,  "Damn 
my  powerful  pen!"  to  every  one  of  them.  As  for  sub- 
scriptions, he  subscribed  enormously  to  his  own  Motor 
Ambulance  Corps.  He  had  actually  raised  his  unit,  found 
his  volunteers,  his  surgeons,  his  chauffeurs  and  his 


260  THE  BELFRY 

stretcher-bearers,  he  had  bought  and  equipped  a  Motor 
Ambulance  car,  the  one  he  had  proposed  to  go  with  him- 
self. And  they  took  his  subscriptions  and  his  Ambulance 
Car  and  his  volunteers ;  but  they  wouldn't  take  him ;  no, 
not  at  any  price.  They  put  one  of  his  surgeons  at  the 
head  of  the  thing  instead  of  him  and  sent  it  out  without 
him,  and  Jimmy  had  to  see  it  go.  But  when  they  proposed 
that  Jimmy  should  use  his  powerful  pen  to  maintain  it  in 
the  field,  he  swore  that  he  would  use  it  to  expose  the  whole 
system.  And  when  he  found  that  the  responsibility  for 
rejecting  his  services  rested  with  the  War  Office,  he  went 
down  to  the  War  Office  and  complained,  and  to  the  Ad- 
miralty and  complained,  and  to  the  Home  Office  and  com- 
plained. After  that  he  seems  to  have  visited  all  the  Em- 
bassies in  turn — the  American,  the  French,  the  Belgian, 
and  I  suppose  the  Russian  and  the  Japanese. 

When  I  asked  the  Thesigers  what  he  was  doing  now 
they  said  they  didn't  know.  They  hadn't  heard  of  him 
and  his  activities  for  quite  a  fortnight,  and  they  didn't 
bother  about  him.  They  were  too  much  wrapped  up  in 
Bertie  and  in  Reggie,  even  if  they  hadn't  been  too  busy — 
every  one  of  them  up  to  their  necks  in  work  for  the  Army 
or  the  hospitals.  They  admitted  that  he  had  sent  them 
large  subscriptions. 

It  seemed  to  me,  as  far  as  I  could  make  out,  that  Viola 
hadn't  seen  or  heard  of  him  since  she  had  left  Amershott. 
She  was  too  busy  and  too  much  wrapped  in  Reggie  to 
bother  about  him  either;  at  least,  it  looked  like  it.  She 
seems  to  have  known  in  a  vague  way  that  he  had  talked 
about  going  to  the  front,  but  I  didn't  believe  she  thought 
he  would  ever  get  there. 

And  he  had  lain  low  for  a  fortnight. 

When  we  had  got  back  to  London  at  noon  on  Tuesday, 
which  was  the  end  of  Jimmy's  fortnight,  I  found  a  wire 


HIS  BOOK  261 

from  Amershott  waiting  for  me.  It  had  been  sent  that 
morning.  It  said:  "Leaving  to-morrow.  Must  see  you 
urgent  business.  Can  you  come  down  this  evening. 
JEVONS." 

I  knew  that  he  wouldn't  send  a  wire  like  that  without 
good  reason;  so  I  went. 

A  light  rain  was  falling  when  I  reached  Midhurst.  A 
hired  dog-cart  met  me  at  the  station,  so  I  gathered  that 
Jimmy's  mad  passion  for  his  motor-car  had  survived  the 
war. 

And  at  Amershott  everything  seemed  to  have  survived. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  troops  on  the  high  road,  and  for 
the  stillness  of  the  coverts,  and  for  the  recruiting  posters 
stuck  everywhere  on  the  barn-doors,  and  for  the  strange 
figure  of  old  Perrott  driving  the  mail-cart  from  Midhurst 
to  Amershott  instead  of  his  son,  you  wouldn't  have  known 
that  the  war  had  anything  to  do  with  England.  And  I 
expected  to  find  Jimmy  in  his  old  Norfolk  suit  standing 
in  the  garage  and  looking  with  adoration  at  his  motor-car. 

As  I  thought  all  this  I  smiled  when  Parker  told  me  that 
Mr.  Jevons  was  in  the  garage.  Parker,  I  noticed,  didn't 
smile. 

And  in  another  minute  it  was  Jevons  who  did  all  the 
smiling. 

I  found  him  in  the  garage — no,  I  can't  say  I  found  him, 
for  I  didn't  recognize  him,  but  I  heard  his  voice  assuring 
me  that  it  was  he.  He  was  in  khaki ;  from  head  to  foot, 
from  his  peaked  military  cap  to  his  puttees  he  was  in 
faultless,  well-fitting  khaki;  even  his  shirt  and  his  neck- 
tie were  khaki.  Jimmy's  colours  showed  up  wonderfully 
out  of  all  that  brownish,  greyish,  yellowish  green.  His 
flush  fairly  flamed,  and  his  eyes,  his  eyes  looked  enormous 


262  THE  BELFRY 

and  very  bright — great  chunks  of  dark  sapphire  his  eyes 
were.  They  were  twinkling  at  me. 

"It's  me  all  right,  old  man,"  he  said,  and  turned  from 
me  in  his  deep  preoccupation.  And  as  he  turned  I  saw 
that  he  wore  round  his  right  arm  a  white  brassard  with  a 
red  cross  on  it. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  coach-house  where  the  great  black 
and  white  idol  used  to  stand  there  was  a  khaki  car  with 
a  huge  red  cross  on  a  white  square  on  its  flank  and  on 
its  khaki  canvas  hood.  This  was  what  his  eyes  turned  to. 

"But — where's  the  black-and-white  god  ?"  I  asked. 

"There  she  is,"  he  said,  "you're  looking  at  her." 

"You  haven't " 

"Yes,  I  have.  She's  had  her  new  coat  on  for  the  last 
three  weeks.  You  couldn't  take  her  out  as  she  was,  all 
black  and  white.  She'd  have  been  knocked  to  bits  before 
we'd  begun  our  job.  So  I  had  her  painted.  She's  a  good 
enough  target  for  shell-fire  as  she  is." 

"You  don't  mean,"  I  said,  "that  you're  going  out  ?" 

"What  else  have  I  been  meaning  ever  since  there  was 
a  war  ?" 

"But — where  are  you  going  to?" 

"Belgium,"  he  said.  He  added  that  it  was  the  only 
blessed  place  he  could  get  to. 

"And  what  are  you  going  to  do  when  you  get  there  ?" 

He  said  he  was  going  to  scout  for  wounded,  of  course. 

And  as  he  saw  me  still  incredulous  he  told  me  how  he'd 
managed  it.  He  had  gone  every  day  for  three  weeks  to 
the  Belgian  Legation  and  worried  the  Belgian  Minister 
into  a  state  of  nervous  prostration.  And  when  the  Minis- 
ter was  at  his  worst  and  was  obliged  to  leave  things  a  bit 
to  his  secretaries,  he'd  gone  to  the  secretaries  and  worried 
them  till  the  First  Secretary  had  given  him  his  passport 
and  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  President  of  the  Belgian 


HIS  BOOK  263 

Red  Cross  Society  at  Ghent.  And  he  had  gone  to  Ghent — 
went  there  last  week — and  he  had  seen  the  President  and 
talked  to  him.  He  had  talked  for  ten  minutes  before  his 
services  had  been  accepted  by  the  Belgian  Red  Cross. 

And  he  was  going  out  to-morrow. 

"It's  just  taken  me  six  weeks  to  do  it.  I  gave  myself 
six  weeks." 

Of  course  I  congratulated  him.  But  I  couldn't  realize 
it.  The  whole  thing  seemed  incredible.  Jevons  in  his 
khaki  was  incredible.  The  transformed  motor-car  was  in- 
credible, as  a  thing  that  Jevons  was  concerned  with.  Above 
all,  it  was  incredible  that  he  should  have  sacrificed  his  god. 

I  couldn't  believe  it  until  Kendal,  the  chauffeur,  turned 
up,  also  in  khaki  and  with  a  Red  Cross  brassard  on  his 
right  arm.  Kendal  was  credible  enough;  he  looked  as  if 
he  had  been  going  to  the  war  all  his  life.  It  was  evident 
that  he  was  keen  on  the  adventure.  It  was  also  evident 
that  he  adored  Jevons  more  than  ever.  By  watching  Ken- 
dal in  the  act  of  adoration  and  keeping  my  eyes  fixed  on 
him  I  was  able  to  take  it  in,  and  to  assent  to  the  statement 
that  Jevons  was  going  to  the  war. 

He  was  of  course  if  Kendal  said  so. 

Kendal  was  asking  me  what  I  thought  of  the  car. 

"She's  not  the  beauty  she  was,  sir,"  said  Kendal.  "I 
don't  suppose  Mr.  Jevons  will  care  much  how  he  knocks 
her  about  now.  And  they  do  say  the  Belgium  roads  is  fair 
destruction  to  cars." 

I  said  they  were.  I'd  motored  on  them.  Kendal  looked 
at  me  as  he  might  have  looked  at  the  survivor  of  a  shat- 
tering experience.  Then  he  looked  at  his  car.  He  seemed 
to  be  seeing  all  the  roads  in  Belgium  in  a  hideous  vision. 

Then  he  spoke.  "Well,  they  may  be  bad  roads,  but  Mr. 
Jevons  isn't  going  to  be  done.  He'll  take  out  ten  cars  be- 
fore 'e  turns  back.  Ten  cars,  he  will." 


264  THE  BELFRY 

Yes,  yes,  I  might  have  known  it.  Was  there  ever  any- 
thing Jevons  had  made  up  his  mind  to  do  and  didn't? 
Had  I  ever  known  him  turn  back  from  any  adventure  that 
he  had  set  out  on  ?  If  he  said  he  was  going  to  the  war, 
why  couldn't  I  have  known  that  he  would  go  ?  The  more 
incredible  the  thing  was,  the  more  likely  he  was  to  do  it. 

When  I  said  so  he  shook  his  head  and  said  it  wasn't 
really  as  likely  as  it  looked. 

We  were  sitting  together  after  dinner  in  his  garden. 
Though  it  was  the  third  week  in  September  the  nights 
were  still  warm.  Without  Viola,  the  stillness  of  the  place 
was  strange  to  me,  almost  uncanny,  as  if  Viola  were  dead 
and  had  come  back  and  was  listening  to  us  somewhere. 
I  had  just  told  him  it  was  splendid  of  him  going  out  like 
this,  and  he  had  smiled  back  at  me  and  asked,  "Like 
what  ?"  And  then  I  had  said  I  might  have  known  it ;  it 
was  the  sort  of  thing  he  would  do. 

No,  he  went  on,  it  wasn't  likely.  It  had  been  touch 
and  go,  he  had  only  just  pulled  it  off  by  the  skin  of  his 
teeth.  It  had  given  him  more  trouble  than  anything  he'd 
ever  tried  for.  It  had  bothered  him  more.  It  had  bothered 
him  most  damnably. 

I  thought  he  was  referring  to  his  struggles  with  the  re- 
cruiting depots  and  the  War  Office  and  the  Home  Office 
and  the  Embassies  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  And  I  said  it 
was  pretty  hard  luck  his  own  Ambulance  Corps  being  sent 
out  without  him.  But  he  said,  No ;  it  wasn't.  He  hadn't 
been  very  keen  on  the  Ambulance  Corps.  He  hadn't  really 
wanted  to  go  out  with  all  that  beastly  crowd.  This  quick 
scouting  game — by  himself — was  more  in  his  line.  All  he 
regretted  was  the  time  he'd  lost. 

Well,  I  said,  anyhow  he  was  a  lucky  beggar  to  have  got 
what  he  wanted  after  six  weeks. 

At  that  he  looked  at  me  suddenly  and  his  face  went  all 


HIS  BOOK  265 

sharp  and  thin.  Or  else  I  hadn't  noticed  till  then  how 
sharp  and  thin  it  was.  His  flush  had  seemed  to  flood  it 
and  fill  it  out  somehow,  and  his  eyes  struck  your  atten- 
tion like  two  great  flashes  of  energy.  The  flash  had  gone 
out  now  as  he  looked  at  me. 

I  reminded  him :  "Haven't  you  always  said  you  could 
get  what  you  wanted  ?" 

"Oh  yes,  I've  said  it,  and  I've  done  it.  That's  nothing. 
Any  fool  can  do  that.  The  great  thing  is  to  make  yourself 
get  what  you  don't  want.  I  didn't  want  to  do  this.  I 
had  to." 

"No.  You  wanted  to  enlist.  But  I'm  not  sure  that 
from  your  point  of  view  this  isn't  better." 

"Jolly  lot  you  know,"  he  said,  "about  my  point  of  view." 

"Your  idea,"  I  explained,  "of  doing  things  on  your 
own.  Isn't  that  what  you  wanted  ?" 

He  answered  very  slowly :  "I  don't  think — it  matters — 
what  I  wanted — or  what  I  didn't  want.  It's  enough — 
isn't  it  ? — if  I  want  to  now — if  I  want  it  more  than  any- 
thing else  ?" 

I  said,  No,  I  didn't  think  it  did  matter. 

But  I  hadn't  a  notion  what  he  meant.  I  didn't  know 
that  he  was  on  the  edge  of  a  confession.  I  couldn't  see 
that  he  was  trying  to  tell  me  something  about  himself,  and 
that  I  had  started  him  off  by  telling  him  he  was  splendid. 
It  was  as  if — then — he  too  had  felt  that  Viola  was  there 
and  listening  to  us,  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  her  and  not 
to  me. 

For  the  next  thing  he  said  was,  "I  want  you  to  tell  Viola 
about  it.  Tell  her  it's  all  right.  Tell  her  I'm  all  right. 
See?" 

"But  shan't  you,"  I  said,  "be  seeing  her?  Isn't  she 
going  to  see  you  off  or  something  ?" 

He  said,  "No.    Much  better  not.    She  wouldn't  be  con- 


266  THE  BELFRY 

tent  with  seeing  me  off.  She'd  try  to  come  out  with  me. 
She'd  worry  me  to  take  her.  And  I'm  not  going  to  take 
her.  She  isn't  to  know  I'm  going  till  I've  gone.  And  she 
isn't  to  know  where  I've  gone  to.  I  won't  have  her  coming 
out  to  me.  You've  got  to  see  to  that,  Furny.  You've  got 
to  stop  her  if  she  tries  to  get  out.  They're  all  trying.  You 
should  just  see  the  bitches — tumbling,  and  wriggling  and 
scrabbling  with  their  claws  and  crawling  on  their  stomachs 
to  get  to  the  front — tearing  each  other's  eyes  out  to  get 
there  first.  And  there  are  fellows  that'll  take  them. 
They'll  even  take  their  wives. 

"Not  me.  Not  much.  I  wouldn't  let  Viola  cross  in  the 
same  boat  with  that  lot. 

"It  ought  to  be  put  a  stop  to. 

"The  place  I'm  going  to — the  things  I'm  going  to  see — 
and  to  do — aren't  fit  for  women — aren't  fit  for  women  to 
come  within  ten  miles  of.  Whatever  you  do,  Fumy — and 
I  don't  care  what  you  do — you're  not  to  let  her  get  out." 

I  suppose — I  suppose  I  made  him  some  sort  of  promise. 
He  says  I  did.  I  don't  remember. 

I  do  remember  telling  him  I  thought  it  was  a  pity — if 
he  meant  to  go  out — that  he  hadn't  seen  Viola  all  this  time. 

And  I  remember  his  answer.  "I  haven't  seen  her — all 
this  time — because  I  meant  to  go  out.  I  meant  that  noth- 
ing on  this  earth  should  stop  me." 

"How  do  you  know,"  I  said,  "that  she'd  have  stopped 
you?" 

"How  do  I  know  ?  How  do  I  know  anything  ? — It's  you 
who  don't  know.  You  don't  know  anything  at  all." 

Well,  he  went — like  that — without  telling  any  of  them. 

I  ran  down  on  the  car  with  him  to  Folkestone  and  saw 
him  off  on  the  boat  to  Ostend,  he  and  Kendal,  his  chauf- 
feur— he,  as  he  pointed  out  to  me,  superior  to  Kendal  only 


HIS  BOOK  267 

in  the  perfect  fitting  of  his  khaki.  "Otherwise  there  isn't 
a  pin  to  choose  between  us.  Except,"  he  said,  "that  Ken- 
dal  doesn't  funk  it  and  I  do." 

And  with  Kendal  grinning  from  ear  to  ear  over  Mr. 
Jevons's  delicious  joke,  and  Jimmy  waving  his  khaki  cap 
in  a  final  valediction,  and  Kendal's  grin  dying  abruptly 
as  he  achieved  the  military  salute  he  judged  appropriate, 
we  parted. 

Jimmy's  last  words  to  me,  thrown  over  the  gunwale, 
were,  <rDon't  run  after  me,  Fumy.  You  won't  catch  me 
this  time." 


XIII 

THEN  I  went  back  and  told  Viola  about  it.  I  took  her 
into  my  library  that  had  once  been  Jevons's  study,  where 
he  had  delivered  the  Grand  Attack.  I  gave  her  a  letter 
that  Jevons  had  scribbled  before  lunch  in  the  hotel  at 
Folkestone.  I  suppose  he  had  explained  things  in  it. 

But  as  for  me,  or  any  power  I  had  to  break  it  to  her, 
I  might  just  as  well  have  told  her  that  he  was  dead. 

Except  that  perhaps  then  she  wouldn't  have  turned  on 
me. 

"You  Icnew  this,"  she  said,  "you  knew  he  was  going 
and  you  never  told  me  ?" 

I  said  I  had  only  known  it  last  night — how  could  I  have 
told  her  ? 

She  persisted.    "You  knew — at  what  time  last  night  ?" 

I  hesitated  and  she  drove  it  home. 

"You  might  have  wired.    It  wasn't  too  late." 

I  said  it  was,  and  that  I  didn't  know  that  she  didn't 
know  till  it  was  too  late  to  wire. 

"Do  you  suppose,"  she  said,  " — if  I'd  known — that  I 
should  be  here?" 

I  couldn't  tell  her — she  was  so  white  under  her  wound 
and  the  shock  of  it — I  couldn't  tell  her  that  she  had  given 
me  no  reason  to  suppose  that  she  would  be  with  him. 

And  she  went  on.  "Why  couldn't  you  have  wired  in 
the  morning,  then  ?  I  could  have  caught  that  boat." 

"Because,  my  dear  girl,  he  doesn't  want  you  to  go  out." 

"It  doesn't  matter  what  he  wants — or  thinks  he  wants 
— I'm  going. 

268 


HIS  BOOK  269 

"And  what's  more,"  she  said,  "you've  got  to  take  me. 
That's  all  you've  gained  by  trying  to  stop  me." 

I  replied  that  nothing  would  induce  me  to  take  her  out, 
that  I'd  promised  Jimmy  she  shouldn't  go. 

She  said  that  didn't  matter.  Jimmy'd  know  I  couldn't 
keep  a  silly  promise  like  that,  and  if  I  wouldn't  take  her 
she'd  simply  go  by  herself. 

I  tried  to  explain  to  her  very  gently  that  her  going — at 
all — was  out  of  the  question.  She  would  do  no  good  to 
anybody  by  going;  she  would  annoy  Jimmy  most  fright- 
fully; untrained  women  were  not  wanted  at  the  front. 

Untrained  ?  She  had  got  her  certificate  three  days  ago. 
What  did  I  suppose  she  had  wanted  it  for — if  it  wasn't  to 
go  out  with  Jimmy  if  he  went  ? 

"You  knew  he  was  going,  then  ?"  I  said. 

"I  knew  he  wanted  to  go.  But  I  didn't  think  he'd  go 
so  soon.  I  didn't  really  think  he'd  go  at  all.  They  told  me 
I  needn't  worry,  that  he  hadn't  a  chance." 

"Who  told  you?" 

"Oh,  everybody.  The  General  and  Colonel  Braithwaite 
and  Charlie,  and  Bertie,  and  Reggie — at  least  he  told 
Norah — and  the  people  at  the  War  Office  and  the  Ad- 
miralty and  the  Embassies." 

"You  went  to  them  ?    You  went  to  the  War  Office  ?" 

"I  went  everywhere  where  he  did,  or  as  near  as  I  could 
get.  And  they  all  told  me  the  same  thing — he  hadn't  a 
chance.  Not  the  ghost  of  a  chance.  I  really  thought 
he  hadn't.  When  you  think  of  the  men — men  who  can  do 
things,  who  are  dying  to  go  and  are  being  kept  back " 

"You  were  helping  him  to  go  ?"  I  said.  I  saw  a  vision, 
or  I  tried  to  see  it,  a  pathetic  vision  of  Viola  following 
poor  Jimmy  in  his  pursuit  of  secretaries  and  ambassadors, 
doing  insane,  impossible  things  to  help  him. 


270  THE  BELFRY 

And  then  I  saw  Viola  herself.  She  was  looking  at  me, 
with  all  her  features  tilted  in  that  funny  way  she  had. 

"Well — no,"  she  said ;  "I  wasn't  exactly  helping" 

"What  were  you  doing,  then  ?" 

"I'm  afraid  I  was  trying  to  stop  him." 

The  sheer  folly  of  it  took  my  breath  away. 

"Surely,"  I  said,  "if  he  hadn't  the  ghost  of  a  chance, 
it  wasn't  necessary  ?" 

"Well — it  was  necessary,  you  see.  He's  so  awfully 
clever.  He  was  very  nearly  off  once  or  twice.  Only  we 
just  managed  to  get  in  in  time." 

"Who  got  in  in  time  ?" 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  only  me,  Furny,  it  was  all  of  us.  We 
were  all  out  trying  to  stop  him — Charlie  and  Reggie  and 
Uncle  Billy — he  pulled  all  the  ropes — we  couldn't  do 
much." 

"But  what — what  did  General  Thesiger  do  ?" 

"He  didn't  'do'  anything.  He  hadn't  got  to.  He  just 
said  things.  Told  them  about  Jimmy." 

I  don't  know  whether  my  face  expressed  horror  or  ad- 
miration. It  must  have  been  a  sort  of  horror,  for  she 
began  to  excuse  herself. 

"Why  not  ?    Why  should  poor  little  Jimmy  go  ?" 

"Because  he  wants  to.  You'd  no  business  to  stop  him 
when  he  wanted  to  go." 

"But — that  was  it.  He  didn't  want  to  go.  He  only 
thought  he  ought  to  go." 

"How,"  I  said  sternly,  "do  you  know  what  he  wanted  ?" 

"Because,"  she  said,  "he  told  Uncle  Billy.  He  kept 
on  saying  he  ought  to  go.  And  we  told  him  he  oughtn't. 
What  earthly  good  can  Jimmy  do  out  there,  with  his  poor 
little  heart  all  dicky  ?  He'll  simply  die  of  it.  You  don't 
suppose  I'd  have  stopped  him  if  I'd  thought  it  was  good 
for  him  to  go?  Or  if  I'd  thought  he  really  wanted  to? 


HIS  BOOK  271 

We  told  him  all  that — Uncle  Billy  and  I  did — we  told  him 
straight  that  if  he  tried  to  get  out  we'd  try  and  stop  him." 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "you  told  him.    That's  a  different  thing." 

"Things,  Furny,  always  are  different  to  what  you  think 
them.  At  least  they're  never  half  so  nasty.  Of  course 
we  told  him.  And  of  course  he  laughed  in  our  faces.  We 
thought  we  had  stopped  him.  But — he's  slipped  through 
our  fingers. 

"We  might,"  she  said,  "have  known." 

I  heard  her  say  all  that,  though  I  wasn't  listening.  It 
comes  back  to  me  that  she  said  it.  It  was  dawning  on  me 
that  in  this  queer  business  there  were  details,  quite  im- 
portant details,  that  had  escaped  me.  The  war  had  taken 
up  my  attention  to  the  exclusion  of  Viola's  affairs.  But 
it  was  evident  that  things  had  happened  while  I  was  away. 
I  was  thinking  of  something  that  she  let  out. 

"Look  here,"  I  said,  "when  you  say  you  told  him,  do 
you  mean  that  you  and  he  have  been  seeing  each  other  ?" 

"Of  course  we've  been  seeing  each  other.  Until  he 
stopped  it.  He  said  he  couldn't  stand  the  strain." 

"And  you  ?"  I  said.    "Did  you  stand  it  ?" 

She  looked  at  me  straight  and  hard. 

"You've  no  right  to  ask  me  that,"  she  said. 

Well,  perhaps  I  hadn't.  And  if  I  had  owned  frankly 
that  I  hadn't  all  might  have  been  well.  But,  as  it  was, 
before  I  knew  where  we  both  were,  we  had  quarrelled. 

Yes.  I  quarrelled  with  Viola;  or  she  quarrelled  with 
me ;  it  really  doesn't  matter  how  you  put  it ;  and  it  shows 
the  awful  tension  we  must  have  been  living  in. 

When  I  heard  her  say  that  I  had  no  right  to  ask  her 
that  question  I  answered  that  I  thought  I  had. 

She  said,  "What  right  ?" 


272  THE  BELFRY 

And  I  said  if  she  would  think  a  little  she  would  see 
what  right. 

And  at  that  she  fired  up  and  the  blaze  was  awful.  We 
two  were  up  there  alone  and  she  had  me  at  her  mercy.  She 
held  me  in  the  blaze. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  "I'm  to  think  of  your  everlasting 
meddling  with  my  affairs  ?" 

I  pointed  out  that  a  charge  of  meddling  came  rather 
oddly  from  a  lady  who  honoured  me  by  staying  in  my 
house  because  she  preferred  it  to  her  husband's. 

"You  know  perfectly  well  why  I'm  staying  in  your 
house ;  and  if  you  don't,  Xorah  does.  I  could  have  stayed 
with  my  father,  for  that  matter." 

I  said  I  thought  that  that  was  extremely  doubtful — in 
the  circumstances. 

I  had  her  there,  and  she  knew  it,  for  she  retired  in  bad 
order  on  an  irrelevant  point.  She  said  I  was  no  judge  of 
the  circumstances. 

I  said  peaceably  that  perhaps  I  wasn't,  but  that  she 
must  own  that  I  had  behaved  as  if  I  were.  At  any  rate 
I'd  given  her  the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 

She  said,  "You  talk  as  if  I'd  been  through  the  Divorce 
Court.  Perhaps  that's  where  you  think  I  ought  to  be. 
The  benefit  of  the  doubt !  You  certainly  have  given  it  me. 
It's  been  nothing  but  doubt  with  you,  Walter,  ever  since  I 
knew  you.  You  always  thought  awful  things  about  me.  I 
know  you  have.  I  could  see  you  thinking  them.  You 
thought  vile  things  about  me,  and  vile  things  about  Jimmy. 
You  came  rushing  out  to  Belgium  because  you  thought 
them.  And  the  other  day  you  thought  the  same  thing  of 
me  and  Charlie  Thesiger,  and  you  came  rushing  after  me 
again  and  giving  me  away,  and  behaving  so  that  every- 
body else  would  think  me  awful  too." 

"My  dear  child,  you  owned  yourself  that  Charlie " 


HIS  BOOK  273 

"Oh — Charlie !  As  if  he  mattered !  He  was  only  being 
an  ass — the  war  upset  him,  or  something.  I  don't  care 
what  you  think  about  Charlie — he  doesn't  either — but 
why  you  should  go  out  of  your  way  to  think  me  awful " 

I  said  I  thought  we'd  done  with  that. 

"No,"  she  said,  "we  haven't  done  with  it.  I  want  to 
get  to  the  bottom  of  it.  What  makes  you  do  these  things  ? 
I  believe  you  want  to  make  out  that  I'm  horrid,  just  as 
you  wanted  to  make  out  that  poor  little  Jimmy  was,  when 
I  went  to  him  in  Bruges." 

She  went  on.  "I  can  understand  that,  because  I  did  go 
to  him,  and  I — I  cared  for  him  and  you  didn't  like  it.  I 
can  even  understand  your  wanting  me  to  be  horrid  then, 
because  it  made  it  easier  for  you.  I  had  the  sense  to  see 
that  that  was  all  that  was  the  matter  with  you  then,  so  I 
didn't  mind.  But  why  on  earth  you  should  keep  it  up  like 
this!  What  can  it  matter  to  you  now  whether  I'm  nice 
or  horrid  ?" 

She  had  rushed  on,  carried  away  by  her  own  passion, 
without  seeing  where  she  was  going.  I  don't  think  she 
had  seen,  any  more  than  I  had,  that  for  nine  years  I  had 
been  living  behind  a  screen.  A  screen  that  had  hidden  me 
from  myself.  I  don't  think  she  saw  even  now  when  she 
came  crashing  into  it. 

It  was  I  who  saw. 

The  thing  was  down  about  my  ears;  and  it  wasn't  the 
violence  of  its  fall  that  terrified  me ;  it  was  my  own  naked- 
ness. I  wasn't  prepared  to  find  myself  morally  undressed. 

I  turned  away  from  her.  I  began  fiddling  with  my  pens 
and  papers.  I  trailed  long  slip-proofs  under  her  eyes, 
pretending  that  I  had  work  to  do.  But  she  saw  through 
my  pretences  and  her  voice  followed  me. 

It  was  softer,  though.  It  seemed  to  be  pleading,  as  if 
she  knew  nothing  about  me  and  my  screen. 


274  THE  BELFRY 

"What  harm  did  I  ever  do  you  ?  Or  poor  Jimmy  either  ? 
I  didn't  let  you  marry  me.  You  ought  to  be  grateful  to 
Jimmy.  At  least  he  saved  you  from  that." 

I  said  I  thought  we  needn't  drag  her  husband  into  it, 
and  I  haven't  a  notion  what  I  meant.  I  had  to  say  some- 
thing, and  if  it  sounded  disagreeable,  so  much  the  better. 

And  she  said  there  I  was  again — thinking  that  I  had  to 
remind  her  that  Jimmy  was  her  husband. 

"You  certainly  seem  to  have  forgotten  it,"  I  said. 

"He  knows  how  much  I've  forgotten." 

With  that  last  word  she  left  me. 

I  tried  hard  to  shake  the  horror  of  it  off.  I  remember 
I  sat  down  to  my  proofs,  and  I  suppose  I  tried  to  correct 
them.  But  all  the  time  I  heard  Viola's  voice  saying,  "I 
can  understand  your  wanting  me  to  be  horrid  then,  be- 
cause it  made  it  easier  for  you.  .  .  .  But  why  on  earth 
you  should  keep  it  up  like  this!  What  can  it  matter  to 
you  now  whether  I'm  nice  or  horrid  ?" 

It  went  on  in  my  head  till  the  words  ceased  to  have  any 
meaning.  I  had  only  a  dreadful  sense  that  I  should  re- 
member them  to-morrow,  and  that  perhaps  when  to-mor- 
row came  I  should  know  what  they  meant. 

And  when  to-morrow  came  the  war  took  up  my  atten- 
tion again,  so  that  I  actually  forgot  that  Viola  had  said  she 
was  going  out  to  it. 

She  had  let  the  subject  drop  abruptly.  She  didn't  even 
refer  to  it  when  my  friend  the  editor  of  the  Morning 
Standard  rang  me  up  the  next  day  to  ask  me  if  I'd  go  out 
to  Belgium  as  their  Special  Correspondent. 

He  was  charmingly  frank  about  it.  He  told  me  that  it 
was  Tasker  Jevons  he  wanted,  and  Tasker  Jevons  he  had 
asked  to  go,  but  since  he  couldn't  get  him  (and  his  power- 
ful pen)  why  then,  he'd  had  to  fall  back  on  me.  Jevons,  he 


HIS  BOOK  275 

said,  had  let  him  down  pretty  badly ;  he'd  understood  from 
Jevons  that  he  was  prepared  to  go  for  them  at  twelve 
hours'  notice.  And  he'd  given  him  twenty-four  hours; 
and  he'd  found  that  he'd  gone  out  there  two  days  ago. 
Chucked  them,  my  friend  the  editor  supposed,  for  another 
paper.  Could  I,  at  twenty-three  hours'  notice,  take  his 
place  ? 

I  said  I  could  and  I  would,  and  I  put  him  right  about 
Jevons. 

And  then  I  went  to  see  about  my  motor-car. 

It  was  when  Viola  began  to  bother  me  about  her  pass- 
port that  the  fight  began. 

First  of  all,  she  asked  me  what  I  was  doing  about  a 
motor-car  ?  I  told  her  she  needn't  worry  herself  about  my 
motor-car.  It  wasn't  any  concern  of  hers.  She  grinned 
at  that  and  said,  All  right.  What  she  really  wanted  was 
to  consult  me  about  her  passport. 

And  when  I  refused  to  be  consulted  about  her  passport, 
to  hear  a  word  about  her  passport  or  about  her  going,  she 
walked  straight  out  of  the  house  into  a  passing  taxi  that 
took  her  to  the  Belgian  Legation,  where  she  saw  that  weak- 
minded  secretary  that  Jevons  had  handled ;  and  she  came 
back  in  time  for  tea,  very  cheerful  and  dressed  in  a  sort  of 
khaki  uniform  she  had  ordered,  with  a  tunic  and  knee- 
breeches  and  puttees  and  a  Red  Cross  brassard  on  her  right 
arm. 

She  said  it  had  been  a  very  tight  squeeze,  but  she'd 
worked  it,  down  to  her  uniform,  and  it  was  all  right,  and  if 
I'd  had  any  difficulty  with  my  motor  people  (I  had  had 
awful  difficulty,  but  how  she  knew  it  I  haven't  to  this  day 
found  out.  Sometimes  I  think  she'd  worked  that  too; 
she  knew  the  firm,  and  she  wasn't  Mrs.  Tasker  Jevons  for 
nothing) — if  I'd  had  any  difficulty  she  could  put  that 
straight  for  me.  She'd  got  her  car — Jimmy'd  ordered  it 


276  THE  BELFRY 

for  Amershott  and  forgotten  about  it — and  her  chauffeur, 
and  I  could  go  in  it  with  her  if  I  liked. 

It  was  a  better  car  than  the  one  I'd  had  in  Belgium 
before  or,  she  said  significantly,  than  the  one  I  was  going 
to  take  out  with  me.  It  was  true  that  I  didn't  know  any- 
thing about  cars. 

Then  Norah,  my  wife,  stood  up  beside  her  sister, 
flagrantly  partisan,  and  said,  Couldn't  I  see  it  wasn't  any 
use  trying  to  stop  her  ?  She  had  me  at  every  point.  If  I 
wouldn't  take  her  she'd  go  by  herself  with  the  chauffeur. 

And  when  I  said,  How  about  my  promises — my  word 
of  honour  ?  Viola  laughed. 

"Your  honour's  all  right,  Wally,"  she  said.  "You're 
not  taking  me  out ;  I'm  taking  you." 

And  very  early  in  the  morning  we  motored  down  to 
Folkestone  to  catch  the  midday  boat  for  Ostend.  And 
Norah  came  with  us  to  see  us  off.  If  I'd  given  her  the 
smallest  encouragement  she'd  have  come  too.  I  might  take 
her,  she  said ;  it  was  beastly  being  left  behind. 

I  said,  like  a  savage,  that  Belgium  was  no  place  for 
women.  I'd  take  my  sister-in-law  there,  but  not  my  wife. 

I  suppose  the  dressing-down  I'd  got  from  Viola  two 
nights  before  bad  rankled.  I  must  have  felt  that  I  was 
getting  my  own  back  that  time,  when  I  threw  it  up  to  her 
that  she  wasn't  my  wife. 

Norah,  I  said,  had  too  much  sense  to  want  to  go  where 
she  wasn't  wanted. 

But  Viola  only  laughed  again  and  said,  "Please  remem- 
ber that  I'm  taking  you,  not  you  me.  And  Norah  wants 
to  go  as  much  as  I  do,  and  it  isn't  altogether  on  your  ac- 
count. You  needn't  think  it.  As  for  keeping  her  back, 
you  couldn't  do  it  if  she  meant  to  go.  It's  Baby  that's 
keeping  her,  not  you." 

And  then  she  thanked  God  she  hadn't  got  a  child. 


HIS  BOOK  277 

And  so,  sparring  and  chaffing  by  turns,  half  in  play  and 
half  in  earnest — for  a  secret  subterranean  anger  smoul- 
dered still  in  both  of  us — we  got  off.  I  remember  at  the 
last  moment  Norah — dear  little  Norah — telling  her  that 
she  was  not  to  bully  me.  She  was  to  let  me  sit  in  the 
motor-car  as  much  as  I  liked;  and  she  was  to  see  that  I 
didn't  get  into  any  danger. 

Danger?  Danger?  As  the  great  fans  of  the  screws 
churned  the  harbour  water  into  foam  that  the  waves 
thinned  and  flattened  out  again  till  the  green  lane  broad- 
ened between  our  track  and  the  pier  head  where  Norah 
stood,  and  the  little,  slender,  dark  blue  figure  became  a  dot 
on  the  pier  and  lost  itself  in  the  crowd  of  dots  and  disap- 
peared, then,  for  the  first  time,  it  struck  me  that  to  be 
going  off  like  this,  alone,  with  Viola,  was  danger  in  itself. 

Because,  the  other  night  she  had  made  me  see  myself 
as  I  really  was — a  man,  not  of  an  irreproachable  rectitude, 
an  immaculate  purity  (had  I  ever,  had  anybody  ever 
really  supposed  that  I  was  such  a  man?)  but  quite  de- 
plorably human,  and  blind — yes,  my  dear  Viola,  blind  as 
any  bat — and  vulnerable,  so  vulnerable  that  I  think  you 
might  have  spared  me,  you  might  have  had  some  pity. 

I  found  myself  addressing  her  like  that,  in  my  heart,  as 
I  walked  up  and  down,  up  and  down  the  deck,  not  looking 
at  her,  but  acutely  aware  of  her,  where  she  sat  in  her 
deck-chair,  bundled  up  in  her  great  khaki  motor-coat  and 
in  the  rugs  I  had  wrapped  round  her. 

I  resented  the  power  she  had  over  me  to  make  me  aware 
of  her — at  such  a  time,  or  at  any  time,  for  that  matter. 
Here  was  I,  a  Special  Correspondent,  going  out  to  the 
war ;  and  there,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  was  the 
war;  in  the  fields  of  France  and  of  Flanders  men  were 
fighting,  men  were  slaughtering  each  other  every  day  by 
thousands.  I  was  a  man  and  I  should  have  been  thinking 


278  THE  BELFRY 

of  those  men ;  and  here  I  was,  compelled  against  my  con- 
science and  my  will  to  think  of  this  woman.  She  had  come 
out  with  me  against  my  conscience  and  my  will,  and 
against  my  judgment  and  my  good  taste  and  my  honour 
and  my  common  sense,  against  everything  in  me  that  I 
set  most  store  by.  I  hadn't  meant  to  take  her  with  me, 
and  she  had  made  me  take  her. 

And  when  my  common  sense  told  me  that  she  hadn't; 
that  I  wasn't  taking  her,  and  that  she  had  as  much  right 
to  he  on  the  Ostend  boat  as  I  had,  I  still  resented  her  being 
there.  I  still  raged  as  I  realized  the  power  she  had  over 
me.  She  had  always  had  it.  She  had  had  it  the  first 
day  I  ever  saw  her,  when  she  had  walked  into  my  rooms 
against  my  orders,  half  an  hour  behind  the  time  I  had 
appointed,  and  had  made  herself  my  secretary  against  my 
will.  She  had  had  it  when  she  used  me  as  a  stalking- 
horse  to  draw  her  brother's  suspicions  away  from  her  and 
Jevons;  she  had  had  it  when  she  drew  me  after  her  to 
Belgium,  and  when  I  followed  her  from  Bruges  to  Canter- 
bury at  her  bidding ;  she  had  had  it  when  I  married  Norah 
(hadn't  she  told  me,  in  the  insolence  of  it,  that  she  had 
meant  that  I  should  marry  Norah  ?).  She  had  had  it,  this 
malign  power  over  me,  the  other  night,  and  she  had  it  now. 
She  always  would  have  it. 

It  wasn't  my  fault,  I  told  myself,  if  she  compelled  me 
to  look  at  her,  this  time,  as  I  passed  her  deck-chair. 

I  looked  at  her,  and  she  sent  me  a  little  sad  interroga- 
tive smile  that  asked  me  why  I  walked  the  decks  thus  sav- 
agely and  alone  ?  And  I  paid  no  attention  to  her  or  to  her 
smile.  In  the  very  arrogance  of  isolation  I  continued  to 
walk  the  decks.  I  meant  her  to  see  that  I  coidd  be  alone 
and  savage  if  I  liked. 

And  when  I  looked  at  her  again  (she  couldn't  have  made 
me  this  time,  for  she  was  unaware  of  me,  lost  in  some  pro- 


HIS  BOOK  279 

found  meditation  of  her  own),  when  I  looked  at  her  again 
my  anger  and  my  resentment  died  with  a  sort  of  struggle 
and  a  pang. 

She  had,  after  all,  the  grace  of  her  ignorance  and  inno- 
cence. If  she  had  had  no  pity  on  me,  it  was  because  she 
was  as  blind  as  she  had  said  I  was.  She  didn't,  she 
couldn't  see  me  as  she  had  made  me  see  myself.  She  didn't 
know  that  she  had  any  power  over  me,  or  else  she  wouldn't 
have  used  her  power ;  she  was  too  honourable  for  that,  too 
chivalrous.  You  could  trust  her  to  play  the  game  until 
she  threw  it  up  and  left  it. 

And  I  passed  again  in  my  sullen  tramping,  and  I  looked 
at  her  for  the  third  time,  urged  by  the  remorse  that  stung 
me.  And  this  time  she  drew  me  so  that  I  went  over  to 
her  and  sat  by  her.  I  looked  at  my  watch,  we  had  been 
two  hours  on  board. 

I  had  left  her  two  hours  alone ;  and  in  those  two  hours 
she  had  suffered.  Her  face  was  set  now  in  a  sort  of  brood- 
ing fear  and  anguish ;  her  breathing  had  a  tremor  in  it,  as 
if  her  heart  dragged  at  her  side.  It  was  better,  far  better, 
that  we  should  quarrel  than  she  should  suffer  and  sit 
quivering  in  silence  and  see  frightful  things. 

But  I  saw  that  she  wasn't  going  to  quarrel,  she  wasn't 
going  to  pitch  into  me ;  she  wasn't  going  to  assert  herself 
and  domineer  over  me  just  now.  This  agony  of  hers  had 
made  her  gentle,  so  that  she  spoke  to  me  as  if  she  were 
sorry  for  me  after  all. 

"Are  you  tired,"  she  said,  "of  tramping  up  and  down  ?" 

"Horribly  tired." 

"Put  my  rug  round  you  if  you're  going  to  sit  still. 
Korah  wouldn't  let  you  sit  still  without  a  rug." 

"Norah  wouldn't  let  me  do  anything  I  shouldn't  do." 

She  smiled  down  at  me,  still  sad,  but  with  the  least 
little  flicker  of  irony  on  the  top  of  her  sadness.  "Norah's 


28o  THE  BELFRY 

job  isn't  very  hard.  You  don't  ever  want  to  do  anything 
you  shouldn't." 

"Oh— don't  I?" 

"No,  never.  That's  the  pull  you  have  over  naughty  peo- 
ple like  me.  You're  so  good." 

"It  wasn't  my  goodness  you  were  rubbing  into  me  the 
other  night." 

"Never  mind  the  other  night.  It  doesn't  matter  what 
I  said  the  other  night.  Only  what  I'm  saying  now  this 
minute  has  any  importance.  But  it  was  your  goodness, 
if  it  comes  to  that." 

"Queer  sort  of  goodness."  I  was  still,  you  see,  a  little 
stung. 

"All  goodness,"  she  said,  "is  queer,  carried  to  that 
pitch.  But  you're  a  dear  in  spite  of  it.  I  won't  bully 
you." 

We  made  the  last  part  of  the  crossing  on  the  highway 
of  the  sunset.  The  propeller  lashed  through  crimson  and 
fiery  copper,  and  the  white  wake  tossed  on  to  the  high- 
way turned  to  rose  and  gold  and  its  edges  to  purple. 

I  had  left  her  again  and  I  called  to  her  to  look  at  this 
wonder  of  the  sky  and  sea ;  but  she  shook  her  head  at  me. 
There  was  no  need  to  call  her.  She  had  looked.  I  could 
see  by  her  eyes  that  the  intolerable  beauty  had  brought 
Jevons  back  to  her.  He  was  there  for  her  in  all  beauty 
and  in  all  wonder. 

Then  she  called  to  me.  "Wally,  come  here.  I  want  to 
speak  to  you." 

I  came. 

"You  thought  I  was  going  to  leave  Jimmy.  But  I 
wasn't.  He  knew  I  wasn't.  Why,  the  first  night  I  knew 
how  impossible  it  was." 

I  said,  Yes.  Of  course  it  was  impossible.  And  of  course 
he  knew. 


HIS  BOOK  281 

"I  shan't  mind  if  only  we  can  get  to  him  before  any- 
thing happens." 

I  said  nothing  would  happen,  and  of  course  we  should 
get  to  him. 

She  was  silent  so  long  that  I  was  startled  when  she  said, 
"Wally — your  nerves  aren't  you,  are  they  ?" 

I  said,  No.     No.     Of  course  they  weren't. 

I  knew  what  she  was  thinking.  Out  of  the  intolerable 
beauty  she  had  seen  Jimmy  rise  with  all  his  gestures.  She 
heard  the  cracking  of  his  knuckles  and  saw  the  jerking  of 
his  thumb.  And  these  things  became  tender  and  pathetic 
and  dear  to  her  as  if  he  were  dead. 

And  she  had  seen  herself  shudder  at  them  as  if  it  had 
been  another  woman  who  shuddered,  a  strange  and  piti- 
less woman  whom  she  hated. 

"It  wouldn't  matter  so  much  if  he  had  wanted  to  go," 
she  said. 

"Why  do  you  keep  on  saying  that  he  didn't  want  to  go  ?" 

"Because  he  said  so.  He  said  he  was  only  going  be- 
cause he  couldn't  go." 

"I  think  you're  doing  him  a  great  injustice.  He  told 
me  he  wanted  to  go;  I've  no  doubt  he  did  want  to  go — 
just  like  any  other  man." 

"Yes.  To  be  just  like  any  other  man — that's  what  he 
wanted.  But  he  couldn't  be.  He  isn't  like  any  other  man. 
And  so  it's  worse  for  him.  Can't  you  see  that  it's  worse 
for  him  ?  It'll  hurt  him  more." 

I  said  I  didn't  see  it,  and  that  she  was  absurd  and  mor- 
bid and  utterly  unreasonable,  and  that  she  was  making 
Jimmy  out  unreasonable  and  morbid  and  absurd. 

She  told  me  then  I  didn't  understand  either  of  them; 
and  we  were  silent,  as  if  we  had  quarrelled  again,  until  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  Flemish  coast. 

We  sailed  into  Ostend  on  the  tail-end  of  the  sunset. 


282  THE  BELFRY 

What  was  left  of  it  was  enough  to  keep  up  for  us  the  in- 
tense moment  of  transfiguration,  so  that  we  didn't  miss  it. 
The  long  white  Digue,  the  towers,  the  domes  of  the  ca- 
sinos and  hotels,  the  high,  flat  fronts  of  the  houses  showed 
soaked  in  light,  quivering  with  light.  Ostend  might  have 
been  some  enchanted  Eastern  city.  It  was  as  if  the  heroic 
land  faced  us  with  the  illusion  of  enchantment,  to  cover 
the  desolation  that  lay  beyond  her  dykes. 

And  we  who  looked  at  it  were  still  silent,  not  now  as  if 
we  had  quarrelled,  but  as  if  this  beauty  had  made  peace 
between  us. 

Viola's  face  had  changed.  It  reminded  me  in  the 
oddest  way  of  her  brother  Reggie's.  I  think  that  for  the 
moment,  while  it  lasted,  she  had  forgotten  Jimmy,  she 
had  forgotten  her  brother  Reggie;  she  had  touched  the 
fringe  of  the  immensity  that  had  drawn  them  from  her 
and  swallowed  them  up.  And  in  forgetting  them  she  had 
forgotten  her  unhappy  self. 

In  Ostend,  at  any  rate,  I  was  to  have  no  more  of  her 
brooding.  We  had  no  sooner  landed  than  she  became  the 
adorable  creature  who  had  run  away  with  Jevons  nine 
years  ago  and  led  me  that  dance  through  the  cities  of 
Flanders.  She  showed  the  same  whole-hearted  devotion 
to  the  adventure,  the  same  innocence,  the  same  tact  in 
ignoring  my  state  of  mind.  She  seemed  to  be  making 
terms  with  me  as  she  had  made  them  then,  suggesting 
that  if  /  would  ignore  a  few  things  I  should  find  her  the 
most  delightful  companion  in  my  travels.  We  must,  she 
seemed  to  say,  of  course  forget  everything  that  she  had 
said  to  me  the  other  night  or  that  I  had  said  to  her  before 
or  since;  and,  as  she  swung  beside  me  in  her  khaki,  her 
freedom  and  her  freshness  declared  how  admirably  she 
had  forgotten.  It  wasn't  as  if  we  didn't  know  what  we 
were  really  out  for. 


HIS  BOOK  283 

Except  that  she  was  a  maturer  person — thirty-one  and 
not  twenty-two — I  might  have  mistaken  her  for  Viola 
Thesiger,  my  secretary,  setting  out,  in  defiance  of  all  con- 
ventions, with  little  Jevons,  to  look  for  Belfries  in  Bel- 
gium, and  taking  the  war,  since  there  was  a  war  on,  in  her 
stride. 

And  as  I  walked  with  her  through  the  same  streets 
where  nine  years  ago  I  had  hunted  for  her  and  Jevons,  it 
struck  me  as  a  strange,  unsettling  thing  that  I  should  be 
taking  her  out  to  look  for  Jevons  and  at  the  same  time 
playing  precisely  Jevons's  part  in  the  adventure.  She  too 
must  have  been  aware  of  this  oddness — for  she  stopped 
suddenly  to  say  to  me,  "Do  you  remember  when  I  ran 
away  with  Jimmy  ?  Isn't  it  funny  that  I  should  be  run- 
ning away  with  you  ?" 

I  said  it  was.  Very  funny  indeed.  And  I  wondered 
why  she  had  drawn  my  attention  to  it  just  now?  Did 
she  want  to  make  me  judge  by  the  transparent  innocence 
of  this  running  the  not  quite  so  transparent  innocence  of 
that?  I  think  so.  Remember,  it  was  Reggie  Thesiger's 
apparent  doubt  as  to  her  innocence  that  had  been  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  trouble  of  the  last  five  years.  It  ac- 
counted for  her  attack  on  me  the  other  night.  It  was  as 
if  she  had  turned  to  say  to  me  triumphantly,  "Now,  per- 
haps, when  I'm  running  away  with  your  precious  perfec- 
tion, at  last  you  understand  ?" 

We  had  some  difficulty  in  finding  quarters  and  Viola  in- 
sisted on  our  staying  in  the  Station  Hotel,  which  had  been 
bombarded  by  an  aeroplane  the  night  before.  She  pointed 
out  that  it  was  almost  entirely  empty.  "And  so,"  she 
said,  "there  won't  be  anybody  to  see  us." 

It  was  as  if  she  wished  to  remind  me  by  how  thin  a 
thread  my  reputation  hung. 

The  business  of  our  passports  kept  us  in  Ostend  the 


38*  THE  BELFRY 

next  morning.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  there  would  be 
difficulty  about  Viola's  military  pass,  I  was  even  contem- 
plating the  possibility  of  her  being  sent  back  to  England 
by  the  next  boat ;  but  no ;  she  had  forestalled  obstruction, 
and  the  pocket  of  her  khaki  coat  was  stuffed  with  letters 
from  the  War  Office,  the  British  Red  Cross,  and  the 
French  and  Belgian  Embassies.  In  fact,  there  was  one 
horrid  moment  at  the  depot  when  it  looked  as  if  the  Special 
Correspondent  would  be  smuggled  through  under  Viola's 
protection. 

"You  see,  Fumy,"  she  said,  "nobody's  going  to  stop  me. 
Nobody  wants  to  stop  me." 

At  last  we  got  off,  and  early  in  the  afternoon  we  were  in 
Bruges. 

We  had  run  into  the  Market-Place  before  we  knew 
where  we  were;  and  yonder  in  the  street  at  the  back  of 
it  was  Viola's  pension,  and  here  on  our  right  hand  was 
Jimmy's  hotel,  and  there,  towering  before  us,  was  the 
Belfry.  We  looked  at  each  other.  And  through  the  war 
and  across  nine  years,  it  all  came  back  to  us. 

"The  Belfry's  still  there,"  I  said. 

"It  always  was."  She  said  it  a  little  sternly.  But  she 
had  smiled  at  the  allusion,  all  the  same — the  smile  that 
had  never  been  denied  to  it. 

We  stayed  an  hour  in  Bruges  and  lunched  there  in  Jim< 
my's  hotel.  The  fat  proprietor  and  his  wife  were  still 
there  and  they  remembered  us.  They  remembered  Jimmy. 
And  they  had  seen  him  three  days  ago.  Mr.  Chevons  had 
passed  through  Bruges  in  his  Red  Cross  motor-car.  They 
seemed  uncertain  whether  Viola  was  Mrs.  Chevons  or  Mrs. 
Furnival,  and  they  addressed  her  indifferently  as  either. 
An  awful  indifference  had  come  to  them.  Of  the  war  they 
said,  "C'est  triste,  nest-ce  pas?"  We  left  them,  sitting 


HIS  BOOK  285 

pallid  and  depressed  behind  the  barricade  of  their  bureau, 
gazing  after  us  with  the  saddest  of  smiles. 

That  hour  in  Bruges  was  a  mistake ;  so  was  our  lunch- 
ing at  Jimmy's  hotel.  It  was  too  much  for  Viola.  It 
brought  Jimmy  so  horribly  near  to  her.  I  don't  know 
what  she  was  thinking,  but  I  am  convinced  that  from  the 
moment  of  our  entering  Bruges  the  poor  child  had  made 
up  her  mind  that  Jimmy  had  been  killed.  The  smile  she 
had  given  to  the  Belfry  was  the  last  flicker  of  her  self- 
control,  and  halfway  through  lunch  the  grey  melancholy 
that  Bruges  had  absorbed  from  Jimmy  nine  years  ago 
came  down  on  her,  as  nine  years  ago  it  had  come  down  on 
me,  and  it  swallowed  her  up.  By  the  time  the  waiter 
brought  the  coffee  she  was  done  for.  Her  eyes  stared, 
hard  and  hot,  over  the  cup  she  tried  to  drink  from.  She 
couldn't  drink  because  of  the  spasm  in  her  throat. 

"Come,"  I  said,  "we  must  clear  out  of  this." 

We  cleared  out. 

I  too  was  invaded  by  the  grey  melancholy  as  we  came 
to  the  bridge  by  the  eastern  gate  where  I  had  found  Jevons 
that  night  leaning  over  and  looking  into  the  Canal.  It 
was  the  sentry's  sudden  springing  up  to  challenge  us  that 
saved  me.  I  hoped  that  it  would  save  Viola.  She  en- 
joyed the  sentries. 

But  not  this  time.  Her  nerves  were  all  on  edge  and 
she  showed  some  irritation  at  the  delay.  I  felt  then  that 
I  had  to  take  her  in  hand. 

"My  dear  child,"  I  said  (we  were  running  out  on  the 
road  to  Ghent  now),  "do  you  realize  that  there's  a  war  ?" 

She  answered,  "Yes,  Wally,  yes,  I  know  there  is." 

"Do  you  know  that  Antwerp's  over  there,  a  little  way 
to  the  north  ?  And  that  they've  dragged  up  the  big  guns 
from  Namur  for  the  siege  of  Antwerp  ?" 

"Oh,  Wally— have  they?" 


286  THE  BELFRY 

She  turned  her  face  to  the  north  as  if  she  thought  she 
could  see  or  hear  the  siege-guns. 

"But  you  said  Jimmy  was  in  Ghent." 

"Jimmy,"  I  said,  "is  probably  in  Ghent.  If  he  isn't, 
he's  in  Antwerp.  Do  you  know  that  the  battlefields  are 
down  there — no — there — to  the  south,  where  I'm  pointing  ? 
There's  fighting  going  on  there  now" 

She  said,  "Yes,  dear,  I  know,  I  know,"  very  gently ;  and 
she  put  her  hand  on  my  knee,  as  if  she  recognized  the 
war  as  my  private  tragedy  and  was  sorry  for  me.  Then 
she  fell  back  to  her  brooding. 

Somewhere  on  the  great  flagged  road  between  Bruges 
and  Ecloo  we  met  a  straggling  train  of  refugees — old  men 
and  women  and  children,  bent  double  under  their  enormous 
bundles,  making  for  Bruges  and  Ostend.  They  stared,  not 
at  us,  but  at  the  road  in  front  of  them,  with  a  dreadful 
apathy,  as  we  passed. 

"This,"  I  said,  "is  what  finishes  me — every  time  I  see 
it." 

She  said  nothing. 

"Do  you  realize,"  I  said,  "that  those  women  and  those 
little  children  are  flying  for  their  lives?  That  they've 
come,  doubled  up  like  that,  for  miles — from  Termonde  or 
Alost?  That  they've  lost  everything  they  ever  had  ?"  (I 
can  hear  my  own  voice  beating  out  the  horror  of  it  in 
hard,  cruel  jerks.)  "That  their  homes — their  homes — are 
burned  to  ashes  somewhere  down  there  ?" 

At  my  last  jerk  she  turned. 

"No,"  she  said.  "I'm  cold  and  hard  and  stupid,  and 
I  do  not  realize  it.  Neither  do  you.  If  either  of  us 
realized  it  for  two  seconds  we  should  be  either  cutting  our 
throats  in  that  ditch  or  going  back  to  Ostend  now  with  a 
load  of  those  women  and  children,  instead  of  tearing  past 
them  like  devils  in  this  damned  car. 


HIS  BOOK  287 

"I  can't  realize  anything  till  I  know  whether  Jimmy's 
all  right  or  not.  I  can't  see  anything,  or  feel  anything, 
or  think  of  anything  but  Jimmy.  Bruges  is  Jimmy  and 
Belgium  is  Jimmy  and  the  whole  war  is  Jimmy — to  me. 
I  don't  care  if  you  are  horrified.  I  can't  help  it  if  I  am 
callous.  It  is  so.  And  you  can't  make  it  different." 

I  remember  saying  quite  abjectly  that  I  was  sorry — that 
I  was  only  trying  to  turn  her  mind  to  other  things  as  a 
relief. 

"I'm  to  turn  my  mind  to  that — as  a  relief !" 

She  showed  me  a  woman  I  was  trying  not  to  see,  a 
woman  who  carried  the  bedding  of  her  household  on  her 
back  and  dragged  a  four-year-old  child  by  the  hand.  The 
child  slipped  to  its  knees  at  every  other  yard,  and  at  every 
other  yard  was  pulled  up  whimpering  and  dragged  again — 
not  with  anger  or  any  emotion  whatever,  but  with  a  sick- 
ening repetition,  as  if  its  mother's  arm  was  a  mechanism 
set  going  to  pull  and  drag. 

If  ever  there  was  a  weathercock  it  was  my  sister-in-law. 
Without  even  pretending  to  consult  me,  she  made  Colville, 
the  chauffeur,  turn  the  car  round.  (He  was  her  chauffeur, 
after  all,  she  said.) 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  "whether  I  realize  that  woman 
or  not,  or  whether  you  do.  But  I'm  going  to  take  her  into 
Bruges." 

And  we  took  her.  (Viola  nursed  the  four-year-old  child 
all  the  way.)  We  also  took  an  old  man  and  a  young 
woman  with  a  baby  at  her  breast,  and  two  small  children. 
It  was  the  only  thing  to  be  done,  Viola  said. 

It  was  nearly  half-past  five  when  we  left  Bruges  the 
second  time. 

"God  only  knows,"  I  groaned,  "what  time  we'll  get  to 
Ghent!" 


288  THE  BELFRY 

"He  does,"  she  said.  "He  knows  perfectly  well  we  shall 
get  there  by  half-past  seven." 

And  we  did. 

It  was  dark  when  we  turned  into  the  Place  d'Armes 
and  drew  up  before  the  long,  grey  Hotel  de  la  Poste.  L 
jumped  out  and  stood  by  the  kerb  to  give  Viola  my  hand. 

"But — "  she  said,  "I  know  this  place." 

"You  ought  to." 

I  don't  know  where  she  expected  us  to  go.  She  still  sat 
in  the  car  as  if  held  there  by  the  shock  of  recognition.  She 
ignored  my  outstretched  hand. 

"You'd  better  take  your  things,"  she  said  at  last,  "if 
you  want  to  get  out  here.  I'm  going  on  to  look  for 
Jimmy." 

I  had  then  my  first  full  sense  of  what  I  was  in  for.  I 
saw  that  she  was  perfectly  prepared  to  throw  me  over,  to 
dump  me  down  here  or  anywhere  else  and  go  on  by  her- 
self with  the  car  and  the  chauffeur  that  were,  or  ought  to 
have  been,  mine. 

She  didn't  care  if  I  was  Special  Correspondent  to  the 
Morning  Standard,  and  she  had  that  beastly  chauffeur  in 
her  pocket  all  the  time.  (I  discovered  afterwards  that 
she'd  laid  in  food  for  him  and  hidden  it  in  the  locker  un- 
der the  front  seat,  so  that  they  might  be  ready  for  any 
sort  of  adventure.)  And  yet  in  the  very  moment  that  I 
realized  her  disastrous  obstinacy  I  found  her  intolerably 
pathetic. 

"If  you  want  to  look  for  Jimmy,"  I  said,  "you'd  better 
get  out  too.  He'll  be  here  if  he's  anywhere  in  Ghent." 

But  she  was  already  on  the  kerb,  brushing  me  aside. 
She  had  seen  behind  my  back  the  approach  of  the  con- 
cierge and  she  made  for  him. 

"Is  Mr.  Jevons  in  this  hotel — Mr.  Tasker  Jevons  ?" 


HIS  BOOK  289 

Yes,  Mr.  Chevons  was  in  the  hotel.  Madame  would 
find  him  in  the  lounge. 

She  had  swept  past  him  to  the  stair  of  the  lounge,  and  I 
was  following  her  discreetly  when  the  proprietor  dashed 
out  of  his  bureau  to  intercept  us.  The  lounge,  he  said, 
was  reserved  from  seven  till  nine  o'clock  for  the  officers  of 
the  General  Staff. 

Viola  had  paid  no  attention  to  the  proprietor  and  was 
sweeping  up  the  stair.  I  gave  Jevons's  name  and  ex- 
plained that  the  lady  was  Mrs.  Jevons. 

The  proprietor,  a  portly  and  pompous  Belgian,  posi- 
tively dissolved  in  smiles  and  bows  and  apologetic  gestures. 
Mille  pardons,  monsieur,  mille  pardons.  It  would  be  all 
right.  Monsieur  Chevons  was  dining  with  the  officers  of 
the  General  Staff. 

He  did  not  know  that  Madame  was  expected.  He  was 
to  reserve  a  room  for  Monsieur  ? 

I  told  him  to  reserve  rooms  for  me  and  the  chauffeur, 
and  to  consult  Mr.  Jevons  about  Madame.  And  I  hurried 
up  the  stair  after  Viola. 

She  was  waiting  for  me  at  the  turn,  on  the  landing,  by 
the  wide  archway  of  the  lounge,  where  the  great  glass 
screen  began  that  shut  off  the  staircase.  She  stood  back 
from  the  entrance,  looking  in,  and  smiling  at  what  she 
saw.  It  was  clear  by  her  attitude  and  her  absorption  that 
something  was  happening  in  there. 

As  I  approached  she  made  a  sign  to  me  and  withdrew 
farther  back  and  up  the  stair. 

"He's  there,"  she  whispered.  "Over  there.  In  that 
corner." 

For  a  moment  we  stood  together  on  the  stair,  looking 
down  through  the  glass  screen  into  the  lounge. 

The  far  end  of  the  lounge  had  been  turned  into  a  dining- 
place  for  the  officers  of  the  Belgian  General  Staff.  Most 


290  THE  BELFRY 

of  the  tables  were  cleared  now  and  deserted.  But  from  our 
place  on  the  stair  we  had  a  clear  view  slantwise  of  one 
small  table  in  the  corner.  And  we  saw  Jimmy  seated  at 
that  table. 

At  least  we  made  him  out. 

All  but  Jimmy's  head  was  hidden  by  the  figures  of  a 
Belgian  General  and  two  Colonels.  They  had  closed  in 
on  him  (they  were  evidently  all  four  at  the  end  of  their 
dinner)  ;  they  had  closed  in  on  him  in  an  access  of  emo- 
tion and  enthusiasm.  The  General  (the  one  who  sat  beside 
him)  had  his  arm  round  Jimmy's  shoulder;  the  two  who 
sat  facing  him  leaned  towards  Jimmy  over  half  the  table, 
and  one  grasped  Jimmy's  right  hand  in  his ;  the  other  was 
making  some  sort  of  competitive  demonstration.  The  dis- 
engaged arms  of  the  three  held  up  the  glasses  in  which 
they  were  about  to  pledge  him.  And  at  the  other  end  of 
the  room  a  scattered  group  of  soldiers  rose  to  their  feet 
and  looked  on  smiling  and  signalling  applause. 

What  was  happening  down  there  was  public  homage  to 
Jimmy. 

And  in  between  the  two  dark  Belgian  uniforms  that 
obscured  him  you  could  just  see  a  bit  of  Jimmy's  khaki, 
and  from  among  the  white  and  grizzled  heads  that  pressed 
on  him  you  saw  Jimmy's  face  and  Jimmy's  flush  and 
Jimmy's  twinkle;  his  incredible,  irrepressible  twinkle. 
You  could  even  see  the  tips  of  Jimmy's  little  front  teeth 
trying  to  bite  down  his  lip  into  some  sort  of  composure. 
You  could  see  that  he  was  very  shy  and  very  modest ;  you 
could  see  that  in  spite  of  his  shyness  and  his  modesty  he 
was  frightfully  pleased ;  but  more  than  anything  you  could 
see  that  he  was  amused. 

Positively,  positively,  he  had  the  air  of  not  taking  his 
Belgian  officers  very  seriously. 


HIS  BOOK  291 

"We  mustn't  go  down  yet,"  said  Viola,  "or  we'll  spoil 
it." 

So  we  waited,  looking  at  Jimmy  through  the  screen, 
while  the  officers  clinked  their  glasses  and  drank  to  him 
and  called  his  name ;  and  the  group  that  looked  on  echoed 
it ;  and  the  waiters  who  had  come  in  to  see  what  was  hap- 
pening, repeated  it  among  themselves. 

"Vivel'Angleterre!  Vive  les  Anglais!  Vive  Chevons! 
Chevons!  Chevons!" 

"I  wonder,"  said  Viola,  "what  Jimmy  has  been  up  to  ? 
You  can  take  me  to  him." 

When  we  got  to  the  table  we  found  Jimmy  trying  to 
explain  to  the  General  and  the  two  Colonels  in  execrable 
French  that  he  didn't  know  what  it  was  all  about.  He 
hadn't  done  anything. 

Then  he  saw  Viola. 

For  one  second,  while  he  stared  at  her  across  the  room, 
he  appeared  to  be  suffering  from  a  violent  shock.  He  was 
so  visibly  hit  that  the  two  men  who  had  their  backs  to  us 
turned  round  to  see  what  it  was  that  had  affected  him. 
His  flush  had  gone  suddenly  and  he  was  breathing  hard, 
with  his  mouth  a  little  open. 

I  heard  him  saying  something  in  French  about  his  wife. 

He  recovered,  however,  in  a  second,  and  disentangled 
himself  from  the  General  and  the  Colonels  and  from  the 
dinner-table,  and  came  forward. 

And  as  he  came,  I  noticed  something  odd  about  him. 
He  limped  slightly.  His  khaki  had  a  battered  look;  it 
was  soiled  and  torn  in  places,  and  the  Red  Cross  brassard 
on  his  sleeve  was  simply  filthy. 

And  he  had  only  been  out  three  days,  mind  you.  He 
was  only  three  days  ahead  of  us.  But  he  had  lost  no  time. 

As  they  strolled  up  to  each  other  and  met  midway  in 
the  big  public  room,  in  the  fraction  of  time  that  passed 


292  THE  BELFRY 

before  their  hands  touched  I  heard  him  draw  a  hard, 
quivering  breath  and  let  it  out  in  a  long  sigh.  That  breath 
was  a  suppressed  cry  of  trouble  and  of  acquiescence. 

Then  (I  could  have  blessed  him  for  it)  he  twinkled. 

Viola  said,  "What  have  you  been  up  to  ?" 

And  Jimmy,  "I  say,  I  like  that!  What  are  you  doing 
here  ?  Have  you  come  to  look  at  the  Belfry  ?" 

"No.  I've  come  to  look  at  you!"  She  put  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

He  said,  "That's  a  jolly  rig-out  you've  got,"  and  that 
was  all. 

The  General  and  the  two  Colonels  came  forward  and 
were  presented  to  Mrs.  Jevons ;  and  Mr.  Walter  Furnival 
("one  of  our  war-correspondents")  was  presented  to  the 
General  and  the  two  Colonels.  They  saluted  Madame; 
they  begged  Madame  to  accept  their  profoundest  congratu- 
lations ;  they  regretted  that  Madame  had  not  been  present 
just  now  when  they  were  drinking  her  husband's  health. 

And  the  old  General  (the  one  with  the  white  hair  and 
imperial)  informed  her  that  Monsieur  her  husband  had  a 
very  poor  opinion  of  the  Belgian  Army. 

"He  has  saved  the  lives  of  three  Belgian  officers  and  I 
do  not  know  how  many  Belgian  soldiers — and  he  says  that 
it  is  nothing!" 

And  the  stout,  florid  Colonel,  who  had  been  trying  to 
look  young  and  rakish  ever  since  he  had  turned  and  caught 
sight  of  Viola,  suggested  that  "Perhaps,  if  he  had  saved 
your  British,  he  would  not  have  said  that  it  was  nothing." 

And  the  lean,  iron-grey  Colonel  with  the  ferocious  mous- 
tache remarked  in  an  austere,  guttural  voice,  "II  est  im- 
payable — lui!" 

Jimmy  had  been  offering  cigarettes  to  them  as  if  he 
thought  that  was  the  only  thing  that  would  stop  them. 
Then  the  old  white-haired  General  sat  between  Viola  and 


HIS  BOOK  293 

him  with  his  arm  round  Jimmy's  shoulder  and  began 
again,  so  loudly  that  everybody  in  the  room  could  hear 
him. 

"Your  husband,  Madame,  is  a  man  who  does  not  know 
what  fear  is — who  does  not  care  what  death  is.  For  two 
nights  and  three  days,  Madame,  he  has  been  down  there — 
at  Alost  and  Termonde — under  shell-fire.  Mais — un  enfer, 
Madame!  You  would  have  thought  he  had  been  born 
under  fire,  your  husband.  Ce  nest  pas  un  Jiomme,  cest 
un  salamandre.  Bullets — mitrailleuse — shrapnel — it  is  no 
more  to  him  than  to  go  out  in  a  shower  of  rain.  When  our 
men  were  scuttling,  and  shouted  to  him  to  get  under  shel- 
ter, what  do  you  think  he  said  ? — 'Ouvrir  une  parapluie — 
go,  ne  vaut  pas  la  peine." 

There  was  a  shout  of  laughter. 

"That,"  said  Viola,  "is  the  sort  of  thing  he  would  say. 
And  please,  I  want  to  know  what's  the  matter  with  his 
leg." 

I  can  see  her  now,  sitting  on  that  crimson  velvet  seat 
in  the  lounge  and  looking  past  the  gesticulations  of  the 
General  to  Jevons,  who  was  shaking  his  head  at  her  as 
much  as  to  say,  "Don't  you  believe  the  old  boy,  he's  a 
shocking  story-teller." 

The  old  General  seemed  aware  of  her  preoccupation,  for 
he  rose,  murmuring  affectionately,  "Mon  petit  Chevons. 
I  will  not  praise  him  to  you,  Madame.  No  doubt  you 
know  what  he  is." 

I  can  see  her  standing  up  there  and  giving  her  hand  to 
the  old  General  and  trying  to  stiffen  her  face  to  say,  "I 
know." 

Evidently  she  thought  General  Roubaix  was  too  voluble 
to  be  entirely  trustworthy,  for,  when  he  left  us  and  Jimmy 
had  gone  out  to  see  about  our  dinner,  she  addressed  her- 
self to  the  two  Colonels. 


294  THE  BELFRY 

"Please  tell  me  what  my  husband  really  did." 

Both  the  Colonels  tried  to  tell  her;  but  it  was  the 
younger  one  with  the  moustache  (the  one  who  had  said 
that  Jimmy  was  "impayable")  who  satisfied  her. 

It  was  true,  every  bit  of  it.  Jevons,  it  seemed,  had  been 
in  the  thick  of  the  bombardment  of  Alost  and  in  the  fight- 
ing for  the  bridge  at  Termonde.  His  practice  was  to  leave 
Kendal  and  the  motor-car  behind  him  in  some  place  of 
shelter  while  he  walked  into  the  fire.  Sometimes  he  took 
his  Belgian  stretcher-bearers  with  him,  sometimes,  when 
they  didn't  like  the  look  of  it,  he  went  by  himself.  He 
didn't  care,  the  Colonel  said,  where  he  went  or  how.  If 
it  was  through  rifle-fire  or  mitrailleuse  he  went  on  his 
hands  and  knees — he  wriggled  on  his  stomach.  If  it  was 
shrapnel  he  took  his  chance.  He  had  saved  one  of  his 
three  officers  by  carrying  him  straight  out  of  his  own  bat- 
tery, when  the  German  guns  had  found  its  range;  and  he 
had  driven  his  car,  by  himself,  across  a  five-mile-long  field, 
under  a  hailstorm  of  shrapnel,  to  get  the  other  two. 

"You  see,"  the  Colonel  expounded,  "your  husband  has 
chosen  the  most  dangerous  of  all  field  ambulance  work. 
Those  high-speed  scouting  cars,  running  low  on  the  ground, 
can  go  where  a  big  ambulance  cannot.  It  is  magnificent 
what  he  has  done." 

When  Jevons  came  back  they  could  still  hardly  keep 
their  eyes  off  him ;  they  could  hardly  tear  themselves  away. 
It  was  "A  demain,  Monsieur/'  and  "A.  demain,  Colonel/' 
as  if  they  had  arranged  another  deadly  tryst. 

"Well,"  said  Jimmy,  "how  do  you  like  them  ?" 

"Oh — they're  dears,"  said  Viola,  "especially  the  one 
with  the  moustache.  Do  you  know,  they've  told  me  every- 
thing except  what's  the  matter  with  your  leg." 

"My  leg  ?"  said  Jimmy.  "A  bit  of  shell  barked  it.  I'm 
jolly  glad  it's  my  leg  and  not  my  hand." 


HIS  BOOK  295 

I  was  a  little  frightened  when  Viola  left  us  alone  after 
dinner.  I  thought  he  would  pitch  into  me  for  bringing  her. 
But  he  only  said  sadly,  "You  oughtn't  to  have  brought  her, 
Furny.  But  I  suppose  you  couldn't  stop  her." 

I  said,  ISTo,  I  couldn't  stop  her.  But  I  hadn't  brought 
her.  She  had  brought  me. 

We  sat  on  till  the  lounge  was  open  to  the  guests  of  the 
hotel.  And  when  the  war-correspondents  began  to  drop 
in  I  saw  that  Jevons  was  uneasy. 

"D'you  mind  if  I  turn  in,  old  man  ?"  he  said. 

I  asked  him  if  his  wound  was  hurting  him. 

He  stooped  and  caressed  it  pensively. 

"No,"  he  said.  "Not  a  bit.  I  like  my  wound.  It — it 
makes  me  feel  manly." 

Presently  he  said  good  night  and  left  me. 

I  thought — yes,  I  certainly  thought — that  he  exagger- 
ated his  limp  a  little  as  he  crossed  the  room,  and  for  a 
moment  I  wondered,  "Is  he  playing  up  to  the  correspond- 
ents?" 

Then  I  saw  that  Viola  stood  in  the  doorway  waiting  for 
him  and  that  she  gave  him  her  arm. 

And  then  through  the  glass  screen  I  saw  them  going 
together  up  the  stair.  And  I  remembered  the  tale  that 
he  had  told  me  nine  years  ago,  how  he  had  seen  her  stand- 
ing there  and  looking  down  at  him — half  frightened — 
through  the  glass  screen,  and  how  he  had  said  to  me,  "I 
couldn't.  She  was  so  helpless  somehow — and  so  pretty — 
that  for  the  life  of  me  I  couldn't." 

It  was  the  same  room  and  the  same  glass  screen  and  the 
same  stair.  And  it  was  the  same  man.  I  knew  him.  I 
knew  him.  I  had  always  known  him.  (Was  there  ever 
any  risk  he  hadn't  taken?)  I  had  never,  really,  for  one 
moment  misunderstood. 

I  eertainly  knew  why  he  "liked"  his  wound. 


XIV 

WE  had  breakfast  very  early  the  next  morning,  for 
Jevons  was  under  orders  to  start  at  eight  o'clock  for  Ter- 
monde.  We  had  a  table  reserved  for  us  in  a  corner  of 
the  restaurant.  The  hotel  was  full  of  Belgian  officers,  and 
I  found  I  was  infinitely  better  off  in  attaching  myself  to 
Jevons  than  if  I  had  joined  the  war-correspondents. 

Viola  (I  may  say  that  her  rig-out  which  Jevons  had 
admired  so  much,  the  khaki  tunic  and  breeches,  made  us 
terribly  conspicuous)  had  come  down  in  a  contrite  mood. 
I  heard  her  telling  Jevons  that  he  must  be  kind  to  me, 
for  I  had  had  an  awful  time  with  her  and  I  had  been  an 
angel. 

Well,  I  had  had  an  awful  time ;  I  don't  think  I  remem- 
ber ever  having  had  a  worse  time  than  the  hours  I  had 
spent  in  her  company  since  she  had  laid  into  me  on  Tues- 
day evening. 

But  I  had  not  been  an  angel;  far  from  it.  Looking 
back  on  those  hours,  I  can  see  that  I  behaved  to  her  like  a 
perfect  brute. 

She  had  her  revenge.  One  of  those  revenges  that  are 
the  more  triumphant  because  they  are  unpremeditated. 
She  had  dished  me  as  a  war-correspondent. 

For  I  declare  that  from  the  moment  when  we  found 
Jevons  and  his  General  in  the  hotel  I  became  the  victim 
of  her  miserable  point  of  view.  I  could  only  see  the  war 
through  Jevons,  and  as  a  part  of  Jevons;  I  might  have 
said,  like  Viola,  that  to  me  Ghent  was  Jevons,  and  Belgium 

296 


HIS  BOOK  297 

was  Jevons,  and  the  war  was  Jevons.  I  suppose  I  saw 
as  much  of  the  War  from  first  to  last  as  any  Special  Cor- 
respondent at  the  front,  and  I  know,  that,  barring  the 
Siege  of  Antwerp,  the  three  weeks  when  Jimmy  was  in 
it  were  by  no  means  the  most  important  or  the  most 
thrilling  weeks  in  the  war ;  and  of  the  one  event,  the  Siege 
of  Antwerp,  I  didn't  see  as  much  as  I  ought  to  have  seen, 
being  most  terribly  handicapped  by  Viola.  And  yet — 
perhaps  a  little  because  of  Viola,  but  infinitely  more  be- 
cause of  Jevons — those  three  weeks  stand  out  in  my 
memory  before  the  battles  of  the  Aisne  and  Marne  and 
the  long  fight  for  Calais.  Because  of  Jevons  I  have  made 
them  figure,  in  the  columns  of  the  Morning  Standard 
and  elsewhere,  with  a  superior  vividness;  even  now  when 
I  recall  them  I  seem  to  have  lived  with  Jevons  in  Flanders 
through  long  periods  of  time. 

I  have  the  proof  of  my  obsession  before  me  in  a  letter 
from  the  editor  of  the  Morning  Standard,  dated  October 
the  twelfth.  He  says,  "We  are  interested,  of  course,  in 
anything  relating  to  Mr.  Tasker  Jevons,  and  his  perform- 
ances seem  to  have  been  remarkable.  You  have  written 
a  very  fine  account  of  Melle,  which  I  understand  is  a 
small  village  four  and  a-half  miles  from  Ghent.  But 
there  are  other  events — the  Fall  of  Antwerp,  for  instance." 

Well,  we  got  the  story  of  the  Fall  of  Antwerp  all  right. 
But  Jimmy  wrote  it  for  me.  It  was  the  last  thing  he  did 
write. 

Yes :  he  had  only  three  weeks  of  it,  all  told.  He  went 
out  on  Tuesday,  September  the  twenty-second,  and  he 
came  back  on  Tuesday,  October  the  thirteenth.  It  was 
his  infernal  luck  that  he  should  have  had  no  more  of  it. 

And  yet,  I  don't  know.  I  don't  see  how  he  could  have 
held  out  much  longer  at  his  pitch  of  intensity.  Three 
weeks  would  have  been  nothing  to  any  other  man.  But 


298  THE  BELFRY 

Jevons  could  do  more  with  three  weeks  than  another  man 
could  do  with  a  three  years'  campaign,  and  he  contrived 
to  crowd  into  his  term  the  maximum  of  glory  and  of  risk. 
And  when  it  was  all  over  it  was  less  as  if  Fate  had  foiled 
him  than  as  if  he  had  "given"  himself  three  weeks. 

But  Jimmy  was  discontented,  and  every  morning  at 
breakfast  we  listened  to  the  most  extraordinary  lamenta- 
tions. His  job,  he  said,  wasn't  at  all  the  jolly  thing  it 
looked.  For  he  was  under  orders  the  whole  blessed  time. 
He'd  no  more  freedom,  hadn't  Jimmy,  than  that  poor  devil 
of  a  waiter.  He'd  got  to  go  or  to  stay  where  a  fussy  old 
ram  of  a  Colonel  sent  him.  So  here  he  was  in  Ghent,  an 
open  city,  when  he  wanted  to  be  in  Antwerp.  He  hadn't 
been  anywhere — anywhere  at  all.  As  for  what  he'd  done, 
he  couldn't  see  what  the  fuss  was  all  about.  He  hadn't 
done  anything.  He'd  seen  a  little  fight  in  a  turnip-field, 
and  a  little  squabble  for  a  bridge  you  could  blow  up  to-day 
and  build  again  to-morrow,  and  a  little  tin-pot  town  pep- 
pered. And  look  at  the  war !  Just  look  at  the  war ! 

And  when  we  tried  to  cheer  him  up  with  the  prospect 
of  a  second  Waterloo,  the  Waterloo  that  all  the  war-corre- 
spondents said  was  coming  off  next  week,  he  refused  to 
listen  to  what  he  called  our  putrid  gabble.  There  wouldn't 
be  any  Waterloo  next  week  or  the  week  after,  he  said. 
"There  won't  be  any  Waterloo  for  another  two  years,  if 
then." 

He  wasn't  always  lugubrious.  It  was  only  when  he 
thought  that  he  was  missing  the  Siege  of  Antwerp  that  his 
happiness  was  incomplete. 

It  was  on  our  third  morning,  when  he  rushed  off  joy- 
ously (to  Quatrecht,  I  think),  that  I  said  to  Viola,  "You 
thought  it  would  hurt  him  more  than  other  people.  You 
needn't  have  come  out  after  him.  You  see  how  much  it's 
hurting  him," 


HIS  BOOK  299 

"I'm  glad  I  came,"  she  said.  "I  don't  mind  as  long  as 
I  can  see." 

"Do  you  remember  him  telling  Reggie  that  he  wouldn't 
be  in  the  war  because  he  was  a  coward  ?  Don't  you  wish 
Reggie  could  see  him  now  ?" 

She  didn't  answer,  and  I  saw  that  there  was  still  a 
sting  for  her  in  Reggie's  name.  The  war  might  have 
made  her  forgive  him,  but  there  were  things  that  the  war 
couldn't  wipe  out  from  her  memory.  And  there  was  her 
own  rather  appalling  injustice  to  Jimmy.  I  wondered 
whether  she  was  thinking  of  how  she  had  tried  to  stop  his 
going  to  the  front,  and  how  she  had  said  he  didn't  want 
to  go. 

But  I  had  to  own  that  she  had  done  the  best  thing  for 
her  peace  of  mind  by  coming  out. 

My  peace  of  mind,  I  was  told  quite  frankly,  didn't  mat- 
ter. Jevons,  though  he  admitted  that  I  couldn't  have 
stopped  her  coming  out,  made  me  responsible  for  her  pres- 
ence at  the  seat  of  war.  The  trouble  was  that  she  insisted 
on  following  him  wherever  he  went.  And  as  it  wasn't  to  be 
expected  that  he  would  take  her  with  him  into  the  tight 
places  that  he  managed  to  get  into  in  his  own  car,  I  had  to 
have  her  in  mine.  Not  that  Viola  consented  to  my  put- 
ting it  that  way.  It  was  clear  that  she  made  herself  mis- 
tress of  the  situation  when  she  obtained  possession  of  that 
car  and  manoeuvred  (as  I  am  convinced  she  did  manoeuvre) 
for  my  own  failure  with  the  firm  that  supplied  it.  On 
our  first  morning  in  Ghent  we  came  to  what  she  called  an 
understanding,  when  she  rubbed  it  well  into  me  that  it  was 
her  own  car  and  her  own  chauffeur  that  she  had  brought 
out,  and  that  the  man  was  under  her  orders,  not  mine.  If 
I  liked  to  come  with  her,  why,  of  course  I  could.  Other- 
wise, I  could  go  halves  with  one  of  the  other  correspond- 
ents in  one  of  their  cars.  But  she  pointed  out  that  I 


300  THE  BELFRY 

could  hardly  do  better  than  come  with  her,  for  by  simply 
following  Jimmy  I  should  get  nearer  to  the  firing-line 
than  anybody  else.  (She  had  assumed  that  the  firing-line 
was  the  goal  of  every  war-correspondent's  ambition.)  I 
would  find,  she  said,  that  it  would  work  quite  well. 

It  did.  It  worked  better  than  if  I  had  gone  halves 
with  the  other  correspondents.  For  at  this  time  war- 
correspondents  were  not  greatly  loved  by  the  military 
authorities,  and  they  were  having  considerable  difficulty 
in  getting  near  anything,  and  the  time,  Jimmy  said,  was 
coming  when  they  would  be  cleared  neck  and  crop  out  of 
Belgium.  My  astute  sister-in-law  had  calculated  on  all 
this  and  on  her  own  part  in  it. 

"If  you'll  only  trust  me,  Wally,"  she  said  the  first  day 
we  started,  when  all  the  correspondents  in  the  hotel  had 
turned  out  to  see  us  off,  "you'll  find  that  I'm  your  Provi- 
dence and  not  your  curse.  I  can  get  you  through  where 
you'd  never  get  yourself.  Just  look  at  those  men  how  sick 
they  are." 

I  said  I  thought  it  would  be  only  decent  to  take  two  or 
three  of  them  with  us.  We  had  room. 

But  Viola  was  firm.  She  said  it  would  be  most  in- 
decent. We  should  want  all  the  room  we  had  for  our 
wounded. 

"Do  you  suppose  I'm  going  to  chivy  Jimmy  about 
without  doing  anything  to  help  him  ?  As  for  you,  you've 
only  to  sit  tight  and  do  what  you're  told.  You'll  be  all 
right  as  long  as  we  follow  Jimmy." 

And  so  we  followed  him.  My  God,  what  a  chase !  But 
Viola's  little  chauffeur  was  game  and  we  followed. 
Though  Jimmy  had  made  elaborate  arrangements  for 
stopping  his  wife's  progress  at  least  two  miles  outside  the 
danger-zone  she  always  managed  to  get  through.  Sentries, 
colonels,  army  medical  officers — she  twisted  them  into 


HIS  BOOK  301 

coils  round  her  little  finger,  and  cast  them  from  her  and 
got  through.  And  once  through,  we  were  really  quite  use- 
ful in  transporting  wounded.  Jevons  and  I  between  us 
managed  to  keep  her  out  of  the  actual  firing-line  by  tell- 
ing her  she  was  in  all  of  it  there  was ;  and  when  we  were 
loaded  up  with  wounded  there  was  no  difficulty  in  getting 
her  away. 

And  certainly  it  served  my  turn  well  enough.  Though  I 
was  compelled  to  see  the  war  through  Jimmy,  I  saw  the 
war. 

By  the  end  of  our  first  week  Jimmy  seemed  to  get  used 
to  being  followed  as  a  matter  of  course.  We  had  followed 
him  to  Alost  and  Termonde  and  Quatrecht  and  Zele. 
When  we  weren't  following  him  we  were  near  him  some- 
where, working  at  the  dressing-stations  or  among  the 
refugees. 

Then  he  did  a  mean  thing.  He  managed  to  get  himself 
sent  to  Antwerp  for  three  days.  He  sneaked  off  there  by 
himself  on  the  Sunday,  and  when  we  tried  to  follow  him 
we  were  turned  back  at  Saint  Nicolas,  just  too  late  to  see 
the  British  go  through.  He  had  worked  it  this  time. 

When  he  got  back  from  Antwerp  at  the  end  of  his  three 
days  we  knew  that  something  had  happened,  something 
that  he  was  keeping  from  us.  It  wasn't  only  the  fate  of 
Antwerp  that  was  hanging  over  him,  as  it  hung  over  all 
of  us  in  that  awful  second  week.  It  was  as  if  he  had 
seen  something  intimate  and  terrible  that  he  couldn't  talk 
about. 

That  night  after  Viola  had  gone  to  her  room  he  told 
me  what  had  happened.  He  had  seen  Charlie  Thesiger's 
regiment  at  Saint  Nicolas  on  Sunday.  And  to-day — 
which  was  Tuesday — he  had  seen  Charlie  Thesiger.  He 
had  found  him  lying  dangerously  wounded  in  the  British 
Hospital  at  Antwerp.  That,  he  said,  was  what  had  kept 


302  THE  BELFRY 

him  there.  And  he  had  brought  him  back  with  him  to 
Ghent.  He  was  in  the  Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre. 

He  thought,  perhaps,  it  would  be  better  not  to  tell  Viola 
just  yet.  Charlie  didn't  know,  he  said,  that  she  was  here. 

The  war  was  beginning  to  close  round  us. 

The  next  day  (Wednesday)  he  announced  that  he  was 
going  to  Zele;  but  he  didn't,  he  really  didn't  want  me  to 
take  Viola  there.  I  could  go  by  myself,  of  course,  if  I 
liked,  though  he  didn't  care  about  her  being  left. 

But  we  did  go.  Viola's  blood  was  up,  after  what  she 
called  Jimmy's  meanness,  and  there  was  no  keeping  her 
back. 

We  were  a  little  uncertain  of  our  way,  for  following 
Jimmy  as  we  did,  or  rather,  following  the  direction  Col- 
ville  swore  he  had  seen  him  start  in,  took  us  much  too  far 
to  the  north.  We  found  ourselves  on  the  Antwerp  road, 
jammed  in  the  traffic,  and  caught  by  a  stream  of  refugees. 
We  were  obliged  to  turn  back  to  Ghent  to  get  our  bearings, 
but  the  business  of  transporting  women  and  children  kept 
us  on  the  Antwerp  road  all  morning,  and  it  was  past  two 
o'clock  before  we  started  for  Zele. 

I  remember  this  particular  chase  after  Jimmy  for  many 
reasons.  First,  we  lost  our  way  and  never  got  to  Zele  at 
all. 

Down  in  the  south-east  on  the  sky-line  we  saw  a  fleet 
of  little  clouds  that  seemed  to  be  anchored  to  the  earth, 
and  every  cloud  of  the  fleet  was  the  smoke  from  a  burning 
village.  West  of  the  fleet  was  an  enormous  cloud  blown 
by  the  wind  across  miles  of  sky. 

Viola  was  certain  that  the  big  cloud  was  Zele  being 
burned  to  the  ground,  and  that  Jimmy  would  be  burned 
with  it. 

When  I  told  her  that  it  wasn't  likely  that  Jimmy  would 


HIS  BOOK  303 

stay  in  Zele  when  it  was  burning  she  said  that  I  didn't 
know  Jimmy,  and  anyhow  it  was  there  that  she  was  going. 

Suddenly  Viola  sat  up  very  straight. 

"Furny,  is  that  guns  I  hear,  or  thunder  ?" 

I  said  it  was  guns.  A  deep  and  solemn  booming  came 
from  before  and  behind  us  and  on  either  side,  east  and 
west.  We  had  rushed  bang  between  the  French  and  Ger- 
man batteries. 

The  big  cloud  turned  out  to  be  smoke  from  a  factory 
that  the  Belgians  had  set  fire  to  themselves,  and  in  follow- 
ing it  we  had  gone  miles  from  Zele.  Now  we  followed  the 
guns. 

We  turned  east  and  struck  off  south  and  found  our- 
selves in  the  village  of  Baerlere.  The  lines  of  fire  seemed 
suddenly  to  narrow  in  on  us  here. 

There  was  a  clean  path  down  the  centre  of  the  street, 
for  men  and  horses  stood  back  close  under  the  house- 
Walls  on  each  side.  The  place  was  full  of  soldiers.  One 
of  them  told  us  that  we  could  get  to  Zele  by  going  east 
through  the  village,  but  as  the  road  was  being  shelled,  he 
didn't  advise  us  to  try. 

We  went  down  that  clean  middle  of  the  street.  We 
were  safe  enough  as  long  as  we  ran  between  the  houses; 
but  the  village  very  scon  came  to  an  end,  and  then,  in  the 
open  road,  we  were  in  for  it. 

The  fields  dropped  away  from  us  on  each  side,  leaving 
us  as  naked  to  the  German  batteries  as  if  we  were  running 
on  a  raised  causeway.  At  the  bottom  of  the  fields  to  our 
right  there  was  a  line  of  willows,  beyond  the  willows  there 
was  the  river,  and  behind  the  river  bank,  on  the  further 
side,  were  the  German  lines. 

The  grey  smoke  of  their  fire  was  still  tangled  in  the 
willow-tops. 

Colville  drew  up  under  the  lee  of  the  last  house  in  the 


304  THE  BELFRY 

village.  He  didn't  like  the  look  of  that  open  road.  Neither 
did  I. 

"Go  on,"  said  Viola.    "What  are  you  stopping  for  ?" 

The  guns  ceased  firing  for  a  moment  and  we  rushed  it. 

"I  do  wish,"  said  Viola,  "you'd  tuck  your  arm  in, 
Furny.  It's  your  right  arm  and  you're  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  car." 

I  asked  her  what  made  her  think  of  my  right  arm  just 
then. 

"Because  it's  the  only  part  of  himself  that  Jimmy  ever 
thinks  of,"  she  said. 

There  was  ahout  three-quarters  of  a  mile  of  causeway 
and  it  ended  in  a  little  hamlet.  And  the  hamlet — it  had 
been  knocked  to  bits  before  we  got  into  it — the  hamlet 
ended  in  a  hillock  of  bricks  and  mortar. 

The  road  to  Zele  was  completely  blocked. 

"Well—"  said  Colville,  "I  am  blowed." 

"You've  got  to  take  it,"  said  Viola. 

"Sorry,  m'm.  It  can't  be  done.  You  want  a  motor 
traction  with  caterpillar  wheels  for  this  business." 

He  was  backing  the  car  when  a  shell  burst  and  buried 
itself  in  the  place  where  we  had  stood. 

To  my  horror  I  saw  that  Viola  had  opened  the  door  of 
the  car  and  was  getting  out. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing  ?"  I  said. 

"I'm  going  to  walk  to  Zele." 

I  pulled  her  back  and  held  her  down  in  her  seat  by 
main  force.  She  was  horribly  strong.  And  as  she  strug- 
gled with  me  she  said  quietly,  "It's  all  right.  You  two 
must  go  back  and  I  must  go  to  Jimmy." 

I  shouted  to  Colville,  "Turn  her  round,  can't  you,  and 
get  out  of  this." 

He  turned  her.  He  drew  up  deftly  under  the  shelter 
of  a  barn  that  still  stood  intact.  Then  he  spoke. 


HIS  BOOK  305 

"Are  you  quite  sure,  sir,  that  Mr.  Jevons  is  in  that 
place?  Because,  sir,  I  heard  Kendal  say  something  this 
morning  about  their  going  to  Antwerp." 

"Then  why  the  devil  didn't  you  say  so  ?" 

"I  didn't  think  of  it,  sir,  until  I  saw  Mrs.  Jevons  get- 
ting out." 

He  added  by  way  of  afterthought,  "Besides,  I  promised 
Kendal.  You  and  Mrs.  Jevons  wasn't  to  know  he  was 
going  on  to  Antwerp." 

Viola  and  I  looked  at  each  other  and  burst  out  laugh- 
ing. 

Somewhere  behind  us  from  beyond  the  river  a  gun 
boomed  and  we  took  no  notice  of  it.  We  went  on  laugh- 
ing. 

"He's  had  us  again,"  she  said. 

"Yes.  We've  been  done  this  time.  Well — we'd  better 
scoot." 

We  made  a  rush  for  it  between  guns  and  got  to  Baer- 
lere.  Once  we  were  out  of  the  village  and  heading  for 
the  Ghent  road  we  were  safe. 

We  were  hardly  out  of  sound  of  the  guns  when  I  heard 
Viola  saying,  "You  know  it  really  was  funny  of  Jimmy." 

I  said,  "He  won't  think  it  quite  so  funny  when  he  hears 
what  we've  done." 

He  didn't  think  it  funny  at  all.  He  was  furious  when 
he  heard  what  we'd  done.  He  forbade  Viola  to  follow 
him  again.  He  threatened  to  sack  Colville.  He  said 
he'd  have  me  sent  home  to-morrow  and  kept  there,  and 
Viola  should  go  with  me. 

And  when  he'd  finished  he  told  us  that  Antwerp  had 
fallen. 

That  was  how  Jevons  came  to  write  the  story  of  the  Fall 
of  Antwerp  instead  of  me. 


3o6  THE  BELFRY 

Well,  he  didn't  sack  Colville;  and  he  didn't  get  me 
packed  off  with  the  other  war-correspondents  who  left 
Ghent  in  a  body  the  next  day.  And  he  said  nothing 
about  sending  Viola  away.  He  did  better  than  that.  He 
told  her  he  had  brought  Charlie  Thesiger  from  Antwerp 
yesterday,  and  that  her  cousin  was  dying  in  the  Couvent 
de  Saint  Pierre,  and  that  perhaps  it  would  be  a  bit  easier 
for  him  if  she  were  with  him. 

We  took  her  to  the  convent  that  morning.  On  the  way 
there  she  asked  Jimmy  why  he  hadn't  told  her  about 
Charlie  yesterday.  He  said  that  up  till  midnight  we 
weren't  absolutely  certain  that  Charlie  wouldn't  recover, 
and  that  she  was  safer  with  us  in  the  hotel  than  she  would 
be  away  from  us  in  the  convent. 

"My  safety  is  to  be  considered  before  everything  ?"  she 
said. 

He  answered  that  it  was  surely  enough  for  her  if  he 
risked  it  now. 

I  can't  think  why  she  didn't  see  through  him.  I  and 
Kendal  and  Colville  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  was 
taking  her  to  the  convent  to  be  safe.  I  think  he  argued 
that  if  she  had  poor  Charlie  to  look  after  it  would  keep 
her  quiet,  and  she  would  be  out  of  mischief  till  it  was  time 
for  the  Germans  to  march  into  Ghent. 

So  we  took  her  to  him. 

We  found  him  in  a  little  whitewashed  cell  that  one  of 
the  sisters  had  given  up  to  him.  He  lay  under  a  crucifix 
on  the  nun's  narrow  bed,  which  was  too  short  for  him,  so 
that  his  naked  feet  showed  through  the  blankets  at  the 
bottom.  The  naked  feet  of  the  Christ  pointed  downwards 
to  his  head. 

He  had  been  shot  through  the  lungs  and  was  dying  of 
pneumonia,  sending  out  his  breath  in  fierce,  rapid  jerks. 


HIS  BOOK  307 

He  lay  on  his  side  with  his  back  towards  us,  and  his  face 
was  hidden  from  us  as  we  came  in. 

The  sister  who  sat  with  him  made  a  sign  that  said,  "Oh 
yes,  you  can  come  in,  all  of  you;  it  will  make  no  differ- 
ence." 

The  cell  was  so  small  that  Jevons  and  I  had  to  draw 
back  and  let  Viola  go  in  by  herself.  We  two  stood  in  the 
doorway  and  looked  in.  After  the  first  glance  at  the  bed 
— it  was  enough  for  me — I  looked,  I  couldn't  help  look- 
ing, at  Viola.  (Jevons,  I  noticed,  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  body  of  the  dying  man.)  I  heard  her  catch  her  breath 
in  a  sob  before  she  could  have  seen  him. 

He  had  slipped  his  blankets  from  his  shoulder,  and  it 
was  the  sight  of  his  back — under  the  half-open  hospital 
shirt  which  showed  the  bandages  and  dressings  of  his 
wound — that  upset  her;  his  back  that  might  have  been 
any  man's  back,  the  innocent  back  that  she  had  no  memory 
of,  that  disguised  and  hid  him  from  her  and  made  him 
strange  to  her  and  utterly  pathetic.  And  then,  there 
was  the  back  of  his  head,  sunk  like  lead  into  his  pillow. 
The  cropped  hair  had  begun  to  grow.  You  could  see  a 
little  greyish  tuft.  You  wouldn't  have  known  that  it  was 
Charlie's  head. 

She  went  slowly  round  the  bed,  taking  care  not  to  graze 
the  feet  that  were  stretched  out  to  her.  And  then  she  saw 
him. 

She  saw  a  deep  purplish  flush  and  glazed  eyes  that 
couldn't  see  her,  and  a  greyish  beard  pointing  on  an  un- 
shaved  jaw;  and  a  mouth  half  open,  jerking  out  its  breath. 
She  laid  her  left  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  with  her  right 
she  held  the  limp  hand  that  hung  over  the  mattress. 

I  heard  her  say  in  French,  "If  only  he  knew  me " 

And  the  nun,  "Perhaps — at  the  end — he  will  know 
you." 


308  THE  BELFRY 

And  we  left  her  there  with  his  hand  in  her  right  hand 
and  her  left  hand  on  his  shoulder.  She  was  on  her  honour 
to  stay  with  him  till  the  end ;  hut  her  eyes  were  fixed  on 
Jevons,  and  they  followed  him  as  he  went  through  the 
doorway  of  the  cell. 

The  very  minute  he  had  left  her  Jimmy  made  his  bolt 
for  Lokeren.  He  said  he  didn't  want  me ;  hut  I  had  seen 
Viola's  eyes,  and  I  said  it  would  be  safer.  If  I  took 
Viola's  car  and  Colville,  she  couldn't  follow  us. 

"She  won't  follow  us,"  he  said.    "She  can't  leave  him." 

We  made  the  first  bolt  into  Lokeren  together;  and  we 
got  out,  each  with  a  load  of  wounded,  just  as  the  Ger- 
mans were  coming  in.  He  made  his  second  bolt  by  him- 
self and  secretly,  while  Colville  and  I  were  lunching.  We 
followed,  and  were  stopped  in  a  village  two  miles  from 
Lokeren. 

A  Belgian  Ked  Cross  man  met  us  here  and  told  us  that 
Jevons  had  got  through  in  spite  of  them,  and  they  didn't 
in  the  least  expect  him  to  come  back  again.  He  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  seemed  to  be  disgusted  and  annoyed  with 
Jimmy  rather  than  to  admire  him. 

We  hung  about  in  that  village  an  interminable  time.  I 
do  not  remember  its  name,  if  I  ever  knew  it ;  but  I  know 
and  remember  every  house  in  it  and  every  tree  in  the 
avenue  at  the  turn  of  the  grey  road  that  led  to  Lokeren, 
and  even  now,  in  my  worst  dreams,  I  find  myself  in  the 
little  plantation  at  the  end  of  the  village  on  the  left  where 
the  railway  siding  is,  and  where  the  trains  came  in  loaded 
with  wounded.  I  am  always  waiting  for  Jimmy  and  look- 
ing for  Jimmy  and  not  finding  him.  And  at  one  point 
I  always  stumble  over  Viola's  body.  I  find  her  lying 
wounded  in  a  ditch  that  runs  through  the  plantation. 
And  when  I  find  her  I  know  that  Jimmy  is  dead.  And 


HIS  BOOK  309 

that  frightens  me — Jimmy's  death,  I  mean,  not  Viola's 
body.  I  take  Viola's  body  as  a  matter  of  course. 

It  is  an  abominable  dream. 

But  even  that  dream  is  not  more  astonishing,  and  it  is 
far  less  improbable  than  what  I  was  to  see.  We  were  at 
the  end  of  the  village.  Colville  had  drawn  our  car  up  in 
the  middle  of  the  street,  and  I  was  standing  by  him,  when 
two  Belgian  soldiers  rushed  up  to  us,  pointing  up  the 
road,  and  shouting  to  Colville  to  clear  out  of  the  way. 

I  turned.  Eound  the  bend  of  the  road  where  the  ave- 
nue of  trees  was  I  saw  a  train  of  horses  and  gun-car- 
riages careening  with  the  curve,  and  a  battery  of  Belgian 
artillery  came  charging  down  in  full  retreat.  And  now  in 
the  middle  of  the  battery  as  if  he  were  part  of  it  and 
informed  it  with  his  energy  and  speed,  and  now  in  front 
of  it  as  if  he  led  it,  and  joyous  as  if  he  had  turned  its 
retreat  into  a  victory,  came  Jimmy  driving  his  car. 

The  inside  of  the  car  was  packed  with  wounded  men; 
and,  wedged  up  against  Jimmy,  and  standing  on  the 
steps,  and  sitting  on  the  bonnet,  and  hanging  on  wherever 
they  could  find  a  foothold  and  hang,  were  seven  officers 
and  soldiers  of  the  Belgian  Army. 

Kendal — bleeding  profusely  from  a  flesh  wound  on  his 
forehead,  but  otherwise  unhurt — sat  inside  among  the 
wounded. 

It  had  been  a  victory  for  Jimmy.  He  had  advanced 
within  fifty  yards  of  the  German  lines,  he  had  picked  up 
two  of  his  wounded  from  under  their  sentry's  fire,  and 
the  rest  of  the  men  and  the  officers  he  had  gathered  on  his 
way. 

We  sent  them  all  to  Ghent  with  Colville. 

Before  he  left,  Kendal  implored  us  just  to  look  at  Mr. 
Jevons's  car. 

Mr.  Jevons's  car  was  worth  looking  at.    It  had  a  hole 


310  THE  BELFRY 

in  the  back  of  it  where  a  bullet  had  gone  clean  through 
and  buried  itself  in  the  cushions.  There  were  five  bullet- 
holes  in  its  hood.  Its  flank  was  scraped  by  a  flying  frag- 
ment of  shell,  the  same  that  had  tilted  its  right  rear  splash- 
board. Inside,  its  canvas  covers  and  its  rubber  mat  were 
stained  with  blood. 

Drawn  up  motionless  in  that  village  street  and  stared 
at,  Jimmy's  car  had  something  of  its  old  self-conscious 
air.  It  looked  pleased,  and  at  the  same  time  surprised  at 
itself. 

And  while  Jevons  was  dressing  and  bandaging  his  flesh- 
wound  for  him  an  idea  struck  Kendal  and  he  grinned. 

"D'you  remember  the  time,  sir,  when  you  wouldn't  let 
her  out  if  there  was  a  spot  of  rain  ?" 

"I  do,"  said  Jevons. 

"And  look  at  her  now — not  three  weeks.  What  a  life 
she's 'ad!" 

And  when  Kendal  (he  was  as  pleased  as  Punch  with  his 
bandage)  when  Kendal  had  climbed  into  Colville's  car, 
Jimmy  turned  his  round  again;  though  the  officers  im- 
plored him  to  come  on,  for  the  Germans  were  on  our 
backs.  But  Jimmy  only  jerked  his  thumb  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Lokeren  and  made  his  third  bolt.  I  scrambled  in 
beside  him  as  he  started. 

I  don't  mind  saying  that  I  hated  this  adventure.  It 
was  one  thing  to  go  into  Antwerp  when  the  Germans  were 
so  busy  storming  it  that  they  couldn't  attend  to  you,  and 
quite  another  thing  to  be  alone  with  Jimmy  on  that  hor- 
rid grey  road  with  the  Germans  coming  every  minute 
round  the  turn  of  it. 

Jimmy  explained  that  there  was  a  wounded  man  hiding 
in  a  ditch  about  a  mile  from  Lokeren,  and  he'd  got  to 
fetch  him. 


HIS  BOOK  311 

We  fetched  him  and  another  car-load  without  any  mis- 
adventure. 

When  we  got  back  to  our  village  we  found  a  Field 
Ambulance  there.  Jimmy  said,  "I  believe  that's  my 
Field  Ambulance."  Presently  he  gave  a  start  that  made 
the  car  swerve  as  if  he  had  run  over  a  dog. 

"Well,  I'm  damned  if  there  isn't  Viola." 

Yes,  there  she  was.  She  had  come  out  with  the  Field 
Ambulance.  And  it  was  Jimmy's  Field  Ambulance,  the 
one  that  had  been  sent  out  without  him.  It  had  come  on 
into  Ghent  from  Antwerp  yesterday,  and  Viola  had  found 
it 

"This  is  too  bad,"  said  Jevons.  "You  ought  to  be  look- 
ing after  Charlie.  Why  aren't  you  looking  after  him?" 

"Charlie,"  she  said,  "died  three  hours  ago — at  twelve 
o'clock." 

It  wasn't  five  hours  since  we  had  left  her  with  him  in 
the  nun's  cell  under  the  crucifix.  I  don't  think  I  had 
realized  it  before,  but  now  it  came  over  me  as  a  new  and 
strange  thing,  how  little  he  had  mattered.  Then  it  struck 
me  that  Jevons  must  have  known  it  all  the  time. 

"I've  done  everything,"  she  said,  "that  had  to  be  done. 
And  I've  written  to  Aunt  Matty  and  Uncle  George — and 
Mildred." 

"Mildred?"  I  wondered. 

"Well— yes" 

Jevons  and  I  had  forgotten  Mildred.  We  had  forgotten 
her  engagement  to  Charlie,  though  I  suppose  nobody 
knew  better  than  we  did  why  it  had  been  broken  off. 

To  his  father  and  mother  and  Mildred  he  did  matter. 

And  perhaps  he  mattered  to  Viola,  in  a  way;  for  she 
said  she  would  have  given  anything  to  have  saved  him. 
He  must  have  mattered  to  Jevons  when  he  brought  him 
from  Antwerp  and  when  we  buried  him  in  Ghent. 


3i2  THE  BELFRY 

And  the  cross  on  his  grave  reproves  me,  reminding  me 
that  to  his  country  he  mattered  supremely,  after  all. 

After  Lokeren  Jevons  and  I  tried  to  come  to  terms  with 
Viola. 

The  conference  took  place  upstairs  in  their  bedroom, 
where  we  had  withdrawn  for  greater  privacy.  Viola  sat 
on  the  one  chair  and  Jimmy  and  I  on  the  bed.  Jimmy 
did  most  of  the  talking. 

He  said,  "Look  here,  my  dear  child,  if  there  wasn't  a 
war  on,  I  wouldn't  stand  in  the  way  of  your  amusement 
for  the  world.  And  there's  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for 
you.  I  think  you  adorable  in  a  tunic  and  breeches,  and 
General  Koubaix  agrees  with  me,  if  Furny  doesn't.  We 
all  think  you  heroic,  and  you  are  sometimes  useful.  But 
there  isn't  a  thing  you've  done  yet  that  a  man  can't  do 
better — except  getting  Furny  through  the  lines,  and  no- 
body wants  Furny  in  the  lines.  And  when  you're  in  them 
you've  a  moral  effect  equal  to  about  ten  seventeen-inch 
guns.  If  the  men  see  you  hovering  round  their  trenches 
they're  so  jumpy  they  can  hardly  hold  their  rifles.  If 
Kendal  sees  you  he's  so  jumpy  he  can  hardly  steer.  Col- 
ville  says  he'd  rather  hang  himself  than  go  through  an- 
other day  like  Baerlere.  Furny  all  but  lost  his  job  on  the 
Morning  Standard  because  he  was  told  off  to  look  after 
you  when  he  ought  to  have  gone  to  Antwerp — he  would 
have  lost  it  if  I  hadn't  done  his  work  for  him.  And  you 
don't  make  things  easier  for  me.  Good  God ! — sometimes 
I  don't  know  what  I'm  doing. 

"It  isn't  fair  on  us.    It  isn't  fair." 

"It  isn't  fair  on  me"  she  said.  "I'm  jumpy  when  I'm 
kept  back.  You  don't  know  what  it's  like,  Jimmy.  Don't 
turn  me  back." 


HIS  BOOK  313 

And  the  poor  child  began  to  talk  about  her  duty  to  the 
wounded,  and  that  made  him  burst  out  again. 

"The  wounded  ?  If  you  think  you're  any  more  comfort 
to  the  wounded  than  you  are  to  Fumy  and  me  I  can  tell 
you  you're  mistaken.  There  was  a  poor  devil  at  Lokeren 
the  other  day  with  a  bullet  in  his  stomach  who  told  me  he 
didn't  mind  his  wounds  and  he  didn't  mind  the  Germans ; 
what  worried  him  was  the  lady  being  there  when  he  wasn't 
able  to  defend  her." 

She  tilted  her  chin  at  that  and  said  she  didn't  want 
anybody  to  defend  her. 

"Perhaps  you  don't,  but  what  would  you  think  of  a 
man  who  didn't  want  to  defend  you?  What  would  you 
think  of  Furny  and  me  if  we  wanted  you  to  be  here  ?" 

"I  should  like  you  to  want  me,"  she  said. 

"No,  my  dear  child,  you  wouldn't.  You  don't  know 
what  you're  saying." 

And  then  he  said,  "I  know  better  than  you  do  what  you 
want.  Men  aren't  made  like  that — if  they  are  men.  You 
can't  have  it  both  ways."  And  he  said  something  about 
chivalry  that  drove  her  back  in  sheer  self-defence  on  a 
Feminist  line.  She  said  that  nowadays  women  had 
chivalry  too. 

"And  our  chivalry  is  to  go  down  before  yours  ?" 

"Can't  you  have  both?" 

"JSTot  in  war-time.  Your  chivalry  is  to  keep  back  and 
not  make  yourself  a  danger  and  a  nuisance." 

"Come,"  she  said,  "what  about  Joan  of  Arc?"  And 
that  was  too  much  for  Jimmy.  He  jumped  up  off  the  bed 
and  walked  away  from  her  and  sat  on  the  table  as  if  it 
gave  him  some  advantage. 

"No,  no,"  he  said.  "I  can't  stand  that  rot.  When 
you're  a  saint — or  I'm  a  saint — you  can  talk  about  Joan 
of  Arc.  If  you  want  to  be  Joan  of  Arc  go  and  be  it  with 


3H  THE  BELFRY 

some  man  who  isn't  your  husband — who  isn't  in  love  with 
you.  Perhaps  he  won't  mind.  Go  with  Fumy  if  you 
like,  though  it's  rather  hard  on  him." 

I  said  I  thought  he  was  rather  hard  on  Viola — if  he'd 
seen  the  poor  child  at  Baerlere,  flinging  herself  out  of  the 
car  and  proposing  to  climb  over  the  ruins  of  several  houses 
and  walk  by  herself — under  shell-fire — to  Zele,  because 
she  thought  he  was  there 

Jimmy  looked  at  her;  and  he  did  what  he  had  done 
that  night  when  he  saw  her  coming  towards  him  in  the 
lounge.  He  sighed  a  long  sigh  of  complicated  anguish 
and  satisfaction. 

She  heard  it  and  she  understood  it,  and  she  said,  "I 
can't  help  it  if  I  am  like  that.  You'll  have  to  take  the 
risk  of  me.  Please  go  away,  Furny." 

And  I  went. 

Norah  has  been  reading  what  I've  just  written,  and  she 
tells  me  that  there's  a  great  deal  about  Jimmy's  "joy"  and 
his  "adventure"  and  all  that ;  and  not  one  word  about  his 
duty  and  devotion  and  self-sacrifice.  She  says  I  don't 
give  a  serious  impression  of  him.  He  might  have  gone 
out  to  the  war  just  for  fun,  and  that  it  isn't  fair  to  him. 

I  don't  know  whether  it's  fair  or  not.  I  write  as  he 
compels  me  to  write.  I  find  that  I  cannot  separate  his 
joy  and  his  adventure  from  his  duty  and  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice;  he  didn't  separate  them  himself.  I  don't 
even  know  that  self-sacrifice  is  really  the  word  for  it ;  and 
the  impression  he  gave  me  is  just  that — of  going  out  for 
fun.  It  was  the  wild  humour  of  his  devotion  that  made 
it  the  spectacle  it  was. 

(She  has  told  me  that  it's  all  right,  so  long  as  I  recog- 
nize that  it  was  devotion.) 

After  Lokeren  I  had  no  desire  to  go  through  the  rest  of 


HIS  BOOK  315 

the  war  with  Jimmy.  To  be  with  Jimmy  was  destruction 
to  your  sense  of  values.  I  have  got  it  firmly  fixed  in  my 
head  that  the  taking  of  Lokeren  was  an  important  affair. 

As  for  what  Jimmy  called  the  "tinpot  bombardment  of 
Melle"  (there  was  nothing  wrong  with  his  sense  of 
values),  I  shall  see  it  insanely,  for  ever  and  ever,  as  the 
event  of  the  war. 

And  there  is  this  to  be  said,  that  Lokeren  filled  the  last 
gap  in  the  line  closing  round  Ghent,  north,  south  and 
east,  and  drew  it  tighter.  And  Melle  (only  four  and 
a-half  miles  away)  was  the  last  point  in  the  German  ad- 
vance on  Ghent.  The  taking  of  Melle  would  be  a  sign  to 
us  that  the  game  was  up. 

For  three  days  Jimmy  operated  joyously  in  the  village 
and  over  the  leagues  of  turnip-fields  that  lay  outside  it. 

Of  the  first  two  days  I  remember  an  endless  tramping 
over  endless  furrows  that  were  ditches  for  the  dead;  an 
endless  staggering  under  stretchers  that  dripped  blood; 
an  endless  struggling  with  Viola  to  keep  her  under  shelter 
of  the  walls;  each  of  those  acts  seemed  to  be  endless, 
though  one  gave  place  to  the  other,  and  it  was  only  the 
firing  that  went  on  all  the  time,  till  even  Jimmy  com- 
plained once  or  twice  that  he  was  fed  up  with  it. 

I  remember  that  Jimmy's  Field  Ambulance  played  a 
great  part  in  these  adventures.  I  remember  feeling  a 
malicious  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  at  the  same 
time  it  was  compelled  to  witness  his  performances.  It 
couldn't  miss  him. 

I  remember  all  these  things;  but  of  Melle  itself  I  re- 
member nothing  but  the  Town  Hall,  with  its  double  flight 
of  steps  up  to  its  door,  and  the  two  tall  stone  pillars,  one 
on  each  side  of  the  door,  and  the  Greek  pediment  above 
it;  that  and  the  little  old  Flemish  house  that  stood  back 
by  itself  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  and  its  white  walls 


316  THE  BELFRY 

and  its  red-tiled  roof,  and  the  two  green  poplars  in  its 
garden,  mounting  guard.  The  house  and  its  garden  and 
its  poplars  are  always  vivid  and  still ;  they  always  appear 
to  me  as  charged  with  mystery  and  significance  and  as 
connected  in  some  secret  way  with  Jimmy's  fate. 

In  the  pauses  of  our  movements  the  Field  Ambulance 
and  Jimmy's  car  and  Viola's  were  always  drawn  up  before 
the  Town  Hall,  facing  the  little  house. 

Then  came  Sunday,  the  eleventh,  the  third  day  of 
Melle,  when  Viola  was  left  behind  at  Ghent. 

Jimmy  had  made  her  promise  on  her  honour  to  be 
brave,  this  time,  and  stay  in  the  hotel  and  wait  for  orders. 

Colville  stayed  with  her.  They  were  to  pack  our  things 
and  be  ready  to  leave  at  a  minute's  notice.  Colville  had 
secret  orders  that,  if  we  were  not  back  by  midnight,  he 
was  to  take  Viola  on  to  Bruges  in  his  car,  and  wait  for  us 
there. 

For  we  knew  now  that  we  were  in  for  it. 

And  we  knew  that  the  war,  which  was  coming  closer 
and  closer  to  the  city,  was  coming  closer  to  us.  It  had 
been  Charlie  Thesiger  first,  now  it  might  be  Reggie.  At 
least,  we  knew  that  Reggie's  regiment,  the  Third 

shires,  had  come  up  from  Ostend  the  day  before,  that 

it  was  quartered  somewhere  between  Ghent  and  Melle,  and 
that  it  had  been  engaged  at  Quatrecht. 

Our  own  orders  were  to  stick  to  Melle. 

I  suppose  from  the  way  the  ambulances  were  massed 
there  that  the  end  had  been  foreseen.  That  afternoon  the 
battle  began  to  sweep  round  from  Quatrecht  to  Melle; 
and  on  our  third  journey  out  a  rumour  reached  us  at  the 
barrier  where  the  sentry  stood  guard.  It  was  one  of  those 
preposterous  rumours  that  run  before  disaster  and  are 
started  God  knows  how  when  a  retreat  begins.  I  think 
it  was  the  Belgian  Red  Cross  men  who  spread  it,  for  I 


HIS  BOOK  317 

heard  the  guide  who  went  with  Jimmy's  Field  Ambulance 
assuring  him  seriously  that  seven  thousand  British  had 
been  surrounded  and  cut  to  pieces  on  the  road  between 
Quatrecht  and  Melle.  To  be  sure  the  number  diminished 
with  each  repetition  of  the  tale,  dropping  from  seven 
thousand  to  seven  hundred  and  from  seven  hundred  to 
seventy.  But  in  another  hour  we  were  bringing  in  the 
men  of  the shires. 

And  towards  the  end  of  the  day  the  real  bombardment 
of  Melle  began,  and  on  our  last  journey  out  we  and 
Jimmy's  Field  Ambulance  were  in  the  thick  of  it. 

I  can  remember  nothing  of  that  bombardment  but  the 
three  shells. 

The  first  ripped  open  the  roof  of  the  Town  Hall  and 
set  fire  to  it. 

The  second  struck  the  Greek  pediment  and  brought  the 
whole  front  toppling  into  the  street. 

Then,  about  five  minutes  after,  there  was  the  third 
shell. 

The  light  was  going  out  of  the  sky,  so  that  we  saw  the 
first  shell  like  a  sheet  of  curved  lightning  making  for  the 
village  as  we  approached  from  the  Ghent  side.  There  was 
a  deadly  attraction  about  the  thing  that  made  you  feel 
that  it  and  you  were  the  only  objects  in  God's  universe, 
and  that  you  were  about  to  be  merged  in  each  other.  It 
looked  as  if  it  were  rushing  out  of  heaven  straight  for  us, 
so  that  we  were  surprised  when  it  apparently  swerved 
aside  and  hit  the  Town  Hall  instead. 

(Jimmy  and  I  were  in  the  front  of  the  car.  Kendal, 
whose  flesh  wound  was  beginning  to  worry  him,  sat  be- 
hind.) 

A  battery  of  artillery  charged  past  us,  followed  by  the 
remnants  of  a  French  regiment  on  the  run.  Jimmy  put 


3i8  THE  BELFRY 

more  speed  on.  '  By  the  time  we  got  into  the  village  the 
Town  Hall  was  spouting  flame. 

Jimmy  drew  up  his  car  about  fifty  yards  away  from  it. 
The  Field  Ambulance  had  turned,  and  took  its  stand  a 
little  further  away  behind  us,  under  the  cover  of  the  oppo- 
site walls.  Its  men  began  dragging  out  their  stretchers. 
Kendal  and  I  made  ready  with  ours.  The  wounded  were 
being  brought  out  of  every  house  they  were  in. 

A  Belgian  Colonel  rode  past  us,  trying  to  look  unaware 
that  he  was  retreating.  He  shouted  to  us  to  clear  out  of 
it.  This  was  the  only  sign  of  interest  that  he  showed. 

Somebody  else  came  up  to  Jevons  and  told  him  that 
there  were  three  or  four  wounded  men  somewhere  inside 
the  Town  Hall,  but  that  the  place  was  on  fire  and  it  was 
absolutely  impossible  to  get  them  out.  He  advised  us  to 
pick  up  the  men  who  were  lying  in  the  street,  and  clear 
out. 

I  saw  Jevons  nod  his  head  as  if  he  agreed  and  con- 
sented. I  saw  him  get  out  of  the  car.  And  then  I  heard 
Kendal  say,  "Give  us  a  hand,  sir,"  and  I  turned  to  my 
stretchers. 

When  I  looked  round  again  Jevons  was  running  to- 
wards the  Town  Hall.  The  man  who  had  told  us  to  pick 
up  our  wounded  and  clear  out  was  looking  after  him  with 
a  face  of  the  most  perfect  horror. 

Kendal  and  I  followed  with  the  stretchers,  and  we  saw 
Jevons  run  up  the  steps  of  the  Town  Hall.  He  turned  at 
the  top  of  the  steps  and  waved  to  us  to  keep  back. 

Then  he  went  through  the  big  doors  between  the  pillars. 

There  was  a  crash  and  a  roar  as  if  the  whole  building 
had  fallen  in.  It  was  the  top  story  plunging  to  the  sec- 
ond floor.  The  upper  half  of  the  Town  Hall  was  like  a 
crate  filled  with  blazing  straw.  The  Greek  pediment  was 
the  only  solid  thing  that  subsisted  in  that  fire. 


HIS  BOOK  319 

Then  the  first  floor  was  caught.    It  burned  more  slowly. 

Kendal  and  I  and  the  ambulance  men  ran  forward  with 
the  stretchers.  And  Jimmy  came  through  the  doors  car- 
rying a  wounded  Frenchman.  He  went  in  again  and  came 
out  with  another  Frenchman. 

(The  ground  floor  had  begun  to  burn  behind  him.) 

He  went  in  a  third  time  and  came  out  with  Reggie 
Thesiger. 

He  must  have  had  to  go  further  into  the  hall  to  find 
him,  for  it  was  a  much  longer  business.  We,  Kendal  and 
I,  were  down  the  street  by  the  ambulance  when  they  came 
out,  and  I  didn't  see  that  it  was  Reggie  till  I  heard  Ken- 
dal say,  "Sir,  that's  Major  Thesiger  he's  got!" 

Reggie's  arm  was  round  Jimmy's  shoulder  and  Jim- 
my's arm  was  round  Reggie's  waist.  He  half  carried, 
half  supported  him.  He  came  out  in  the  middle  of  a 
cloud  of  smoke  that  hid  him.  The  smoke  was  followed 
by  a  burst  of  fire  and  another  crash  and  roar  as  the  ceiling 
of  the  first  story  plunged  to  the  ground  floor. 

With  all  this  going  on  behind  him  Jevons  paused  on  the 
top  of  the  steps  to  readjust  his  burden  to  the  descent.  We 
heard  afterwards  that  Reggie  had  said,  "You'd  better  leave 
me,  old  man,  and  scoot.  You  can't  do  it." 

It  didn't  look  as  if  he  could.  But  as  we  went  back  to 
them  we  saw  that  Jevons  had  heaved  Reggie  over  his 
shoulder  and  was  carrying  him  down  the  steps.  He  came 
very  carefully  and  slowly,  so  that  we  had  reached  the 
Town  Hall  before  he  had  staggered  to  the  last  step. 

As  we  pressed  closer  to  help  him  he  told  us  to  get  back 
if  we  didn't  want  the  whole  damned  place  down  on  the  top 
of  us. 

We  gave  back  and  he  followed  us.  I  don't  know  how 
we  got  Reggie  on  to  the  stretcher — he  had  a  piece  of  shell 
somewhere  in  his  thigh — but  we  did  it  and  ran  with  him 


320  THE  BELFRY 

to  the  ambulance.  We  had  about  a  minute  to  do  it  in  and 
no  more. 

And  then  the  second  shell  came. 

It  hit  the  Greek  pediment  from  behind,  and  we  saw 
the  two  tall  pillars  that  supported  it  stagger,  snap  like 
two  sticks,  and  bend  forwards,  looking  suddenly  queer 
and  corpulent  in  their  fore-shortening;  then  they  parted 
and  fell,  bringing  down  the  whole  front  of  the  Town 
Hall. 

The  Town  Hall  was  spreading  itself  over  the  street, 
with  a  noise  like  a  ship's  coal  going  down  the  shute  in  a 
thunderstorm,  as  Eeggie's  stretcher  slid  home  along  its 
grooves  in  the  ambulance.  Kendal  and  I  were  inside  for 
a  second  or  two  doing  things  for  Reggie.  The  engine 
throbbed.  The  whole  ambulance  shook  with  its  throbbing. 

In  that  second  Jevons  had  run  back  to  fetch  his  car, 
calling  out  to  us  to  cut  and  he  would  overtake  us.  He  had 
cranked  up  his  engines  and  jumped  in  before  Kendal 
could  get  down  and  go  to  his  help.  When  we  saw  him 
start  we  started.  There  wasn't  any  time  to  lose. 

Kendal  and  I  were  sitting  on  the  back  steps  of  the 
ambulance,  so  that  we  kept  him  in  sight.  It  was  quite 
certain  that  he  would  overtake  us. 

He  was  running  straight  down  the  middle  of  the  road 
when  the  third  shell  came. 

It  burst  on  the  ground  behind  him,  on  his  right,  a  little 
to  one  side.  Some  of  it  must  have  struck  the  steering 
gear. 

The  car  plunged  to  the  left.  It  climbed  reeling  to  the 
top  of  a  bank  and  paused  there,  then  fell,  front  over  back, 
into  the  ditch  and  lay  there,  belly  uppermost,  and  its 
wheels  whirling  in  the  air. 

Jevons  lay  on  his  face,  half  in,  half  out  of  the  ditch. 


HIS  BOOK  321 

He  lay  for  about  three  seconds ;  then,  as  we  ran  to  him, 
we  saw  him  raise  himself  on  his  left  arm  and  crawl  out 
of  the  ditch ;  and  when  we  reached  him  he  was  trying  to 
stand. 

And  he  tried  to  smile  at  us.  "You  needn't  look  like 
that,"  he  said.  "I'm  as  right  as  rain."  And  then  he 
tried  to  raise  his  right  arm. 

You  saw  a  khaki  cuff,  horribly  stained.  A  red  rag 
hung  from  it,  a  fringe  that  dripped. 

Reggie  opened  his  eyes  and  turned  his  face  towards  the 
stretcher  that  slid  into  its  grooves  beside  him. 

"That  isn't— Jimmy— is  it  ?"  he  said. 

I  saw  him  move  his  left  hand  to  find  Jimmy's  right. 
And  I  heard  Jimmy  saying  again  (in  a  weak  voice  this 
time)  that  he  was  as  right  as  rain. 

We  had  got  out  of  the  range  of  the  guns  and  the  sur- 
geons had  done  their  business  with  bandages  and  splints. 
They  had  taken  Reggie  first,  then  Jimmy. 

AJnd  so,  lying  beside  Reggie,  on  his  own  stretcher 
and  in  his  own  ambulance,  he  was  brought  back  to  Ghent. 

The  military  hospitals  were  full,  so  we  took  them  to  the 
Couvent  de  Saint  Pierre.  And  I  went  over  to  the  Hotel 
de  la  Poste  to  fetch  Viola. 

I  don't  know  what  I  said  to  her.  I  think  I  must  have 
done  what  Jimmy  told  me  and  said  they  were  all  right. 
She  never  said  a  word  till  we  got  to  the  Convent.  (She 
told  me  afterwards  that  when  she  saw  me  coming  in  alone 
she  had  been  sure  that  Jimmy  was  killed.  She  didn't 
know  about  Reggie  yet,  you  see.) 

This  part  of  it  is  all  confused  and  horrible. 

We  had  to  wait  before  we  could  see  our  surgeons  at 
the  Convent.  The  nuns  took  us  into  a  little  parlour  and 
left  us  there. 


322  THE  BELFRY 

And  I  told  her  then  what  had  happened.  I  can  see  her 
sitting  in  the  nuns'  parlour,  looking  out  of  the  window 
as  I  told  her;  looking  as  if  she  wasn't  listening.  And  I 
can  hear  my  own  voice.  It  sounded  strange  and  affected, 
as  if  I  had  made  it  all  up  and  didn't  believe  what  I  was 
telling  her. 

"He  saved  Reggie's  life — do  you  see?  at  the  risk  of 
his  own. 

"At — the  risk — of  his  own." 

And  still  she  looked  as  if  she  wasn't  listening.  It 
didn't  soimd  as  if  it  had  really  happened. 

And  I  feel — now — as  if  I  had  taken  hours  to  tell  her. 

Then  one  of  our  men  came  to  us.  He  drew  back  when 
he  saw  Mrs.  Jevons,  and  I  followed  him  to  the  doorway. 
He  said  they  were  busy  with  Major  Thesiger.  They 
hadn't  started  yet  with  Mr.  Jevons. 

And  then — ages  afterwards — one  of  the  surgeons  came 
and  called  me  out  of  the  room.  He  said  the  Major  would 
be  all  right.  They'd  got  the  bit  of  shell  out.  But — 
there  was  Jevons's  hand.  They'd  have  to  take  it  off. 
They  couldn't  possibly  save  it.  And  it  was  going  to  be  a 
beastly  business.  They'd  run  out  of  anaesthetics.  Thesi- 
ger had  had  the  last  they'd  got. 

Yes,  of  course  it  would  have  been  better.  But  Jevons 
wouldn't  hear  of  it.  He  knew  they  were  short  and  Thesi- 
ger didn't,  and  he'd  insisted  on  their  doing  Thesiger  first. 

It  was  an  awful  mistake,  he  said,  because  it  would  hurt 
Jevons  ten  times  more  than  it  would  hurt  anybody  else. 
He.  thought  that  I  had  better  get  Mrs.  Jevons  out  of  that 
room ;  the  ward  where  they  were  operating  was  next  to  it. 

I  couldn't  get  her  out  of  it. 

There  were  five  minutes  when  I  sat  there  and  Viola 
crouched  on  the  floor  beside  me  with  her  face  hidden  on 
my  knees  and  her  hands  grabbing  me  tighter  and  tighter. 


HIS  BOOK  323 

And  the  door  opened  and  I  saw  two  nuns  looking  in.  I 
heard  one  say  to  another,  "C'est  sa  pauvre  femme  qui 
devient  folle."  And  the  door  closed  on  m 

"All  that  fuss  about  a  hand!"  Jimmy  had  come  out 
of  his  faint  and  was  trying  to  restore  Viola  to  a  sense  of 
proportion.  If  all  the  rest  of  him  had  been  blown  away, 
he  said,  by  that  confounded  shell,  and  only  his  hand  had 
been  left,  she  might  have  had  something  to  cry  for. 

And  yet  she  cried  inconsolably  for  Jimmy's  hand. 

God  knows  what  memories  came  to  her  when  she 
thought  of  it.  I  don't  think  she  thought  of  it  as  the  hand 
that  had  written  masterpieces  and  flung  them  aside,  that 
could  steer  a  car  straight  through  hell-fire,  and  that  could 
nurse,  and  bind  up  wounds.  I  know  I  thought  of  all 
these  obvious  things.  But  she  must  have  thought  of  the 
hand  that  she  knew  like  her  own  hand,  the  hand  with 
the  firm,  nervous  fingers,  and  the  three  strong  lines  in  the 
pinkish  palm,  the  hand  she  adored  and  had  shrunk  from, 
whose  gesture  had  been  torture  to  her  and  whose  touch 
was  ecstasy,  the  hand  that  the  surgeons  had  cut  off  and 
tossed  into  a  basket  to  be  cast  out  with  the  refuse  of  the 
wards. 

Not  that  either  of  us  had  much  time  for  thinking  of 
anything  but  how  we  could  get  out  of  Ghent  before  the 
Germans  got  into  it.  Viola  said  it  would  be  quite  easy. 
There  was  the  ambulance,  and  there  was  her  car  and 
there  was  Jimmy's  car. 

I  told  her  that  Jimmy's  god-like  car  was  lying  bottom 
upwards  in  a  ditch  between  Ghent  and  Melle,  an  object 
half  piteous,  half  obscene.  She  said  it  was  a  jolly  good 
thing  then  that  she'd  brought  hers.  Perhaps  it  was. 

We  had  just  got  Jimmy  and  Reggie  into  their  first  sleep 


324  THE  BELFRY 

at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  the  orders  came  for  us 
to  clear  out. 

We  cleared  out  in  Viola's  car,  with  Reggie  on  his 
stretcher  and  Jimmy  (propped  up  with  pillows)  at  his 
head,  and  Viola  at  his  feet,  and  two  wounded  men  in 
front  with  Colville,  and  Kendal  and  me  standing  one 
on  each  step.  (Most  of  our  luggage  was  on  the  Boule- 
vard in  front  of  the  Convent  where  we  had  left  it.) 

We  went,  as  we  had  come,  through  Bruges.  We  drew 
up  to  rest  in  the  Market  Place  under  the  Belfry. 

"You'd  better  -look  at  it  while  you  can,  Viola,"  said 
Jevons.  "You  may  never  see  it  again." 

"I  ?    I  shall  never  see  anything  else,"  she  said. 

We  looked  at  the  Belfry.  It  was  as  if,  under  that 
menace  of  destruction,  we  saw  it  for  the  first  time. 

We  might  have  enjoyed  that  run  back,  Viola  said; 
only  somehow  we  didn't.  Reggie  was  ill  from  his  anaes- 
thetic all  the  way,  and  Jimmy's  temperature  went  up 
with  every  mile,  and  we  missed  the  boat  at  Ostend,  and 
had  to  stay  there  all  night;  and  Jimmy  became  delirious 
in  the  night  and  thought  that  he  had  left  Viola  behind 
in  the  Town  Hall  at  Melle.  And  there  was  no  room  on 
the  morning  boat;  and  when  we  did  get  on  board  the 
Naval  Transport  at  Dunkirk,  Kendal  took  it  into  his  head 
to  be  seasick  till  he  nearly  died. 

We  had  no  peace  till  seven  o'clock  on  Tuesday,  when 
we  got  to  Canterbury. 


XV 

I  THINK  I  have  said  that  Jevons  made  me  suffer.  He 
did.  I  can  say  that  before  those  three  weeks  of  his  all  my 
contacts  with  him  were  infected  by  the  poison  of  my 
suffering.  But  all  that  was  nothing  to  what  he  made  me 
suffer  since,  what  I  suffer  now  when  I  remember  the 
things  I  have  said  of  him,  the  things  I  have  thought  and 
felt — my  furtive  belittling  of  him,  my  unwilling  admira- 
tion, the  doubt  that  I  encouraged  in  the  mean  hope  that  it 
would  become  a  certainty. 

I  would  give  anything  to  be  like  the  Canon  or  my  wife, 
the  only  two  of  us  whose  conscience  doesn't  reproach  them 
when  they  see  Jimmy's  right  sleeve. 

I  remember  Nbrah  saying  to  me  once,  "I  shall  be  sorry 
for  you  if  you  don't  take  care."  Well,  I  am  sorry  for 
myself. 

But  I  am  still  sorrier  for  Mrs,  Thesiger. 

I  know  there's  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  her.  I  had 
wired  to  them  from  Dunkirk  to  tell  them  that  Reggie  was 
slightly  wounded  but  recovering,  and  that  the  four  of 
us  would  be  in  Canterbury  that  evening.  It  wasn't  my 
fault  if  Reggie,  being  a  British  officer,  was  taken  from  us 
at  Dover,  and  sent  to  a  military  hospital;  but  I  admit  I 
ought  to  have  wired  again  to  the  Thesigers  to  inform  them 
of  the  fact.  I  ought  to  have  remembered  that  Reggie 
was  more  important  to  Mrs.  Thesiger  than  Jevons,  even  if 
Jevons  had  done  what  Mrs.  Thesiger  didn't  yet  know  he'd 
done. 

325 


326  THE  BELFRY 

The  maternal  passion  is  a  terrible  thing.  It  has  made 
women  commit  crimes.  It  made  my  mother-in-law  push 
Viola  from  her  on  her  threshold  and  turn  on  me  as  I  was 
helping  Jimmy  out  of  the  car.  It  made  her  say,  "You've 
brought  my  son-in-law.  What  have  you  done  with  mv 
son?" 

(To  do  her  justice,  she  hadn't  seen  what  had  happened 
to  Jimmy.  Though  he  was  tired  and  weak,  he  could  still 
stand  up  and  stagger  along  if  you  held  him  tight.) 

And  the  maternal  passion  is  not  more  terrible  than  the 
passion  that  Viola  had  for  Jevons.  It  made  her  say  to 
her  mother  as  the  Canon  and  I  brought  Jimmy  in  (the 
dear  old  man  had  seen  in  an  instant  why  he  wore  his  coat 
slung  loose  over  his  right  shoulder),  "You  can  see  what 
we're  doing  with  my  husband." 

And  when  we  were  all  in  the  drawing-room  and  I  was 
explaining  gently  that  Reggie  was  all  right,  but  that  we'd 
had  to  send  him  to  the  military  hospital,  it  made  her  say, 
"If  it  wasn't  for  your  son-in-law  your  son  wouldn't  be 
alive." 

God  knows  what  thirst  she  satisfied,  what  bitterness 
she  exhausted,  what  secret  anguish  she  avenged. 

They  were  all  there,  the  Thesiger  women — they  had 
come,  you  see,  to  meet  Reggie — Victoria  and  Millicent 
and  Mildred;  and  they  heard  her.  But  it  was  Mildred 
who  saw.  She  spoke  to  her  mother. 

"Can't  you  see?"  she  said. 

Viola  was  kneeling  by  the  sofa  where  her  father  had 
made  Jimmy  lie,  and  she  had  unbuttoned  and  taken  from 
him  his  heavy  coat.  She  looked  at  me  and  said,  "Please 
take  them  away  somewhere  and  tell  them.  Jimmy  is  so 
tired." 

I  know  that  must  seem  awful.  It  was  awful  to  come 
back  from  the  battlefields  of  Flanders,  from  sieges  and 


HIS  BOOK  327 

sackings  and  slaughter,  and  see  the  women  flashing  fire 
at  each  other.  And  they  were  mother  and  daughter.  But, 
you  see,  they  were  women.  I  know  that  the  war  should 
have  purged  them  of  their  passions  (perhaps  it  did  purge 
them)  ;  but  your  lover  is  your  lover  and  your  son  your 
son  for  all  that. 

And  it  wasn't  easy  for  Mrs.  Thesiger  to  see  how  her 
son-in-law  could  have  saved  her  son*  I  am  not  sure  that 
she  wouldn't  have  thought  it  presumption  in  Jevons  to 
suppose  that  he  could  save  anybody,  let  alone  her  son. 
There  were  people  like  the  Thesigers  from  whom  heroism 
was  expected  as  a  matter  of  course ;  and  there  were  people 
like  Jevons.  You  know  what  she  said  about  his  going  to 
the  front. 

When  I  had  finished  the  tale — and  I  let  her  have  the 
whole  of  it,  from  the  first  shell  that  hit  the  Town  Hall 
to  the  bit  of  the  third  shell  that  hit  Jimmy — she  said, 

"You  mean  that  if  he  hadn't  gone  back  for  his  car '; 

She  had  broken  down  and  was  sobbing  quietly,  but  you 
could  see  how  her  mind  worked. 

I  said,  "I  mean  that  if  he  hadn't  gone  back  to  the 
Town  Hall  to  look  for  Reggie  he  wouldn't  have  been  hit." 

Then  I  told  her  how  they  took  Jimmy's  hand  off. 

I  heard  the  Canon  groan.  Millicent  and  Victoria  be- 
gan to  sob  as  their  mother  had  sobbed.  Mildred  set  her 
teeth  firmly;  and  Mrs.  Thesiger  turned  to  me  a  queer, 
disordered  face,  and  spoke. 

"They — they  gave  the  anaesthetic  to — Reggie  ?" 

"They  did,"  I  said.     "Because  Jimmy  made  them." 

Yes.    I  am  very  sorry  for  Mrs.  Thesiger. 

She  cried,  softly,  and  with  a  great  recovery  of  beauty 
and  dignity,  for  about  fifteen  seconds  (the  Canon  had  gone 
back  to  Jevons)  ;  then  she  rose  and  addressed  her  daugh- 
ter. 


328  THE  BELFRY 

"Mildred  dear,  I  think  Jimmy  had  better  have  Reggie's 
room." 

Then  she  went  to  him ;  and  I  am  told  that  she  kissed 
him  for  the  first  time.  She  kissed  him  as  if  he  had  been 
her  son.  (Poor  Jimmy,  I  may  say,  was  so  tired  that  he 
didn't  want  to  be  kissed  by  anybody.) 

He  still  had  Eeggie's  room  six  weeks  later  when  I  came 
back  from  France  for  a  week-end.  Reggie  had  recovered, 
and  was  with  them  for  a  fortnight's  leave  before  he  went 
out  again. 

£Torah  and  I  went  down  on  Saturday  to  see  him.  (His 
leave  was  up  on  Sunday  night.) 

Without  Reggie  I  don't  think  I  should  have  realized 
Jevons  in  his  final  phase. 

He  had  been  happy,  I  know,  at  Hampstead  in  the  first 
two  years  of  his  marriage;  he  had  been  happy  most  of 
the  time  in  Edwardes  Square;  even  in  Mayfair  he  had 
had  moments;  and  Amershott  had  been,  on  the  whole,  an 
improvement  on  Mayfair.  And  he  had  lived  through  his 
three  weeks  in  Ghent  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy.  And  before 
that,  all  the  time,  there  had  been  his  work,  which  I  am 
always  forgetting,  and  his  fame,  when  he  didn't  forget  it. 

But  there  had  always  been  something. 

At  first  it  had  been  the  Thesigers.  As  long  as  Mrs. 
Thesiger — as  long  as  one  Thesiger — held  out  against  him 
he  had  felt  defeat.  And  then  there  had  been  Reggie's  re- 
turn and  his  appalling  doubt.  He  had  pretended  not  to 
see  his  doubt  and  not  to  mind  it.  And  he  had  seen  it,  as 
he  saw  everything,  and  he  had  minded  awfully.  Then 
came  Viola's  illness,  which  you  could  put  down  to  Reggie's 
doubt.  And  after  that  it  had  been  Viola  pretty  nearly 
all  the  time.  And  even  at  Ghent,  by  the  tortures  of 


HIS  BOOK  329 

anxiety  she  had  caused  him,  you  may  say  that  she  had 
spoiled  his  ecstasy. 

And  now,  without  any  effort,  or  any  calculation  or  fore- 
sight, by  a  stupendous  accident,  he  had  found  happiness 
and  peace  and  certainty.  The  thing  was  so  consummately 
done,  and  so  timed  to  the  minute,  that  when  you  saw  him 
there  enjoying  it,  you  could  have  sworn  that  he  had 
played  for  it  and  pulled  it  off.  It  was  as  if  he  had  said 
to  himself,  "Give  me  time,  and  I'll  bring  all  these  people 
round,  even  Mrs.  Thesiger,  even  Reggie.  I'll  make  them 
love  me.  Wait,  and  you'll  just  see  how  I  shall  score." 

And  there  he  was  scoring. 

And  it  was  as  if  he  had  said  to  himself  long  ago,  "As 
for  Viola,  I  know  all  about  it.  I  know  I  do  things  that 
make  the  poor  child  shudder ;  but  I  can  put  that  all  right. 
I  can  make  her  forget  it.  I  give  myself  three  weeks." 
As  if  he  said,  "She  thought  she  was  going  to  leave  me. 
I  knew  that,  too,  and  I  didn't  care.  She  might  have  left 
me  a  thousand  times  and  I  should  have  brought  her  back." 

I  used  to  think  it  pathetic  that  Jevons  should  have 
wanted  Mrs.  Thesiger  to  love  him — that  he  should  have 
wanted  Reggie  to.  But  I  must  say  his  pathos  was 
avenged.  They  were  pathetic  now.  That  big,  hulking 
Major  wasn't  happy  unless  he  was  writing  Jimmy's  let- 
ters, or  cutting  up  Jimmy's  meat  for  him,  or  helping  him 
in  and  out  of  his  clothes.  Mrs.  Thesiger  wasn't  happy 
unless  she  was  doing  things  for  him.  The  Canon  wasn't 
happy  (though,  like  Norah,  he  had  nothing  on  his  con- 
science) and  Mildred  and  Millicent  and  Victoria  weren't 
happy,  nor  the  Thesiger's  friends  in  the  Cathedral  Close. 

And  then — after  they  had  made  a  hero  of  him  for  six 
weeks — on  that  Saturday  night  when  we  were  all  to- 
gether in  the  Canon's  library,  Jevons  made  his  confes- 
sion. 


330  THE  BELFRY 

We  had  been  exchanging  reminiscences.  Something 
had  made  Viola  think  of  Jimmy's  General  and  the  two 
Colonels  at  Ghent.  She  began  telling  the  Canon  how  we 
had  watched  them  through  the  glass  screen,  and  how 
funny  General  Koubaix  had  looked  with  his  arm  round 
Jimmy's  neck,  and  how  he  had  said  that  Jimmy  was  a 
salamander,  and  that  he  didn't  know  what  fear  is. 

"Oh,  don't  I!"  said  Jimmy. 

And  that  sent  Reggie  back  to  the  day  when  he  had  first 
seen  Jimmy. 

"Look  here,  old  man,  what  made  you  say  you  were  an 
arrant  coward  ?" 

"Because,"  said  Jimmy  simply,  "I  am  one.  Dear  old 
Koubaix  was  talking  through  his  hat. 

"Not  know  what  fear  is !  I  know  a  good  many  things, 
but  I  don't  know  anything  better  than  that.  You  can't 
tell  me  anything  about  fear  I  don't  know. 

"You've  no  idea  how  I  funked  going  out  to  the  war. 
Yes — funked. 

"It  wasn't  any  ordinary  funk,  mind  you,  the  little, 
creepy  feeling  in  your  waist,  and  your  tummy  tumbling 
down,  and  your  heart  sort  of  fluttering  over  the  place 
where  it  used  to  be.  I  believe  you  can  get  over  that. 
And  I  never  had  that — ever,  except  once  when  I  saw 
Viola  in  a  place  where  she'd  no  business  to  be.  It  was 
something  much  worse.  It — it  was  in  my  head — in  my 
brain.  A  sort  of  madness.  And  it  never  let  me  alone.  It 
was  worse  at  night,  and  after  I  got  up  and  began  to  go 
about  in  the  morning — when  my  brain  woke  and  remem- 
bered, but  it  was  there  all  the  time. 

"I  saw  things — horrors.  And  I  heard  them.  I  saw 
and  heard  the  whole  war.  All  the  blessed  time — all  those 
infernal  five  weeks  before  I  got  out  to  it,  I  kept  seeing 
horrors  and  hearing  them.  There  was  a  lot  of  detail — 


HIS  BOOK  33i 

realism  wasn't  in  it — and  it  was  all  correct;  because  I 
verified  it  afterwards.  Things  were  just  like  that.  Every 
morning  when  I  got  up  I  said  to  myself  I'm  going  out 
to  that  damned  war,  but  I  wish  to  God  somebody'd  come 
and  chloroform  me  before  I  get  there.  There  were  mo- 
ments when  I  could  have  chloroformed  myself.  I  felt  as 
if  it  was  the  utter  injustice  of  God  that  I — I — had  to  be 
mixed  up  in  it. 

"Not  know  what  fear  is ! 

"Just  conceive,"  said  Jimmy,  "a  man  living  like  that, 
in  abject,  abominable  terror,  in  black  funk — keeping  it 
up,  all  day  and  half  the  night,  for  five  solid  weeks — be- 
fore he  got  there." 

"And  when  you  did  get  there,"  said  Reggie,  "were  you 
in  a  funk?" 

"Oh,  well,  you  see,  by  the  time  I'd  got  there  it  had 
pretty  well  worn  itself  out.  There  wasn't  any  funk  left 
to  be  in." 

And  when  I  saw  Reggie  look  at  him  I  knew  he  had 
scored  again. 

Still,  I  wondered  how  it  really  stood  with  them;  and 
whether  Reggie  had  settled  with  his  doubt,  or  whether 
sometimes,  when  you  caught  him  looking  at  Jimmy,  it 
had  come  over  him  again.  The  kind  of  virtue  his  brother- 
in-law  had  displayed  in  Flanders  wouldn't  help  him,  you 
see,  to  that  particular  solution.  And  with  the  Thesigers 
— when  they  took  after  their  mother — things  died  hard. 

He  must  have  felt  that  he  had  to  settle  it  before  he 
went. 

Viola  told  us  what  happened. 

It  was  his  last  evening,  and  the  three  were  together  in 
that  room  of  Reggie's.  He  had  just  said  that  Viola 
wouldn't  care  how  many  Town  Halls  he  was  buried  under, 


332  THE  BELFRY 

as  long  as  Jimmy  didn't  go  and  dig  him  out.  And  then, 
suddenly,  he  went  straight  for  it. 

"Jimmy,"  he  said,  "did  you  run  away  with  my  sister, 
or  didn't  you  ?  I  don't  care  whether  you  did  or  not,  but — 
did  you?" 

"No,  I  didn't,"  said  Jimmy. 

"Then  what  the  dickens,"  Reggie  said,  "were  you  doing 
together  in  Bruges?" 

"We  were  looking  at  the  Belfry,"  said  Jimmy. 

And  Reggie  shook  his  head.  "That's  beyond  me,"  he 
said. 

"Yes,"  said  Viola.    "But  it  wasn't  beyond  Jimmy." 

That's  the  real  story  of  Tasker  Jevons  and  his  wife. 

Don't  ask  me  what  would  have  happened  to  them  if 
there  hadn't  been  a  war. 

I've  tried  to  show  you  the  sort  of  man  he  was.  He 
knew  his  hour  even  before  it  found  him.  And  you  cannot 
separate  him  from  his  hour. 


THE  EITD 


""PHE    following    pages   contain   advertisements    of 
•I    books  by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred  subjects. 


OTHER  RECENT  BOOKS  BY  MAY  SINCLAIR 

"A  novelist  whose  ability  to  analyze  human  motives  and 
to  reflect  with  artistic  truth  their  part  in  life  is  to-day  un- 
rivalled." 


A  Journal  of  Impressions  in  Belgium 

12 wo,  cloth,  $1.50 

"Full  of  humor  and  lovableness.  A  most  unusual  and 
fascinating  book."  — Chicago  Tribune. 

"Miss  Sinclair  records  perceptions  of  extraordinary  keen- 
ness; .  .  .  her  point  of  view  is  normal  without  being  in  the 
least  commonplace;  .  .  .  seeking  no  false  'unity  of  tone,' 
she  discusses  unmistakably  true  reactions,  not  only  making 
us  feel  'the  pity  of  it'  but  compelling  us  to  realize  that  if  we 
were  actual  witnesses  of  Belgium's  distress  we  should  some- 
times be  unable  to  realize  the  expected  emotion  at  all." 

— North  American  Review. 

"Miss  Sinclair  is  never  a  blunt  or  a  hasty  observer  and 
her  picture  of  war  as  she  saw  it  will  furnish  valuable  and 
reliable  data  for  the  historian  of  this  terrible  epoch." 

—N.  Y.  Sun. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


OTHER  RECENT  BOOKS  BY  MAY  SINCLAIR 


The  Three  Sisters 


i2mo,  doth,  $1.35 

"The  best  book  Miss  Sinclair  has  written." 

—Prof.  Wm.  Lyon  Phelps. 

"This  story  of  three  distinctly  different  types  of  women 
and  their  attitude  toward  life  is  being  generally  accepted  as 
Miss  Sinclair's  most  powerful  piece  of  writing." 

—N.  F.  Sun. 

"It  deserves  to  rank  among  the  few  notable  novels  of  the 
year. ' '  — Springfield  Republican. 

"  It  can  be  read  only  with  a  feeling  of  distinct  admiration 
for  the  vividness  with  which  it  is  told  and  the  understanding 
of  the  principles  which  actuate  men  and  women  which  it 
evidences."  — Reedy's  Mirror,  St.  Louis. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers       64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


OTHER  RECENT  BOOKS  BY  MAY  SINCLAIR 


The  Return  of  the  Prodigal 

i2mo,  cloth,  $1.35 

"These  are  stories  to  be  read  leisurely  with  a  feeling  for 
the  stylish  and  the  careful  workmanship  which  is  always  a 
part  of  May  Sinclair's  work.  They  need  no  recommendation 
to  those  who  know  the  author's  work  and  one  of  the  things 
on  which  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  is  the  fact  that  so 
many  Americans  are  her  reading  friends." 

— Kansas  City  Gazette-Globe. 

"Always  a  clever  writer,  Miss  Sinclair  at  her  best  is  an  ex- 
ceptionally interesting  one,  and  in  several  of  the  tales  bound 
together  in  this  new  volume  we  have  her  at  her  best." 

— N.  Y.  Times. 

"Let  no  one  who  cares  for  good  and  sincere  work  neglect 
this  book."  — London  Post. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers        64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


NEW  MACMILLAN  NOVELS 


The  Abyss 

BY  NATHAN  KUSSY 

Price,  $1.50 

With  the  publication  of  this  book  a  new  Jewish  novelist  is 
introduced,  one  whose  work  is  of  such  outstanding  character 
that  his  place  in  American  literature  is  henceforth  assured. 
"The  Abyss,"  which  bears  more  than  one  resemblance  as 
regards  subject  matter  to  "Oliver  Twist"  and  "Les  Misera- 
bles,"  tells  of  the  life  of  a  Jewish  lad  in  the  underworld. 
The  story  of  his  association  with  beggars,  criminals  and  the 
outcasts  of  society  and  of  his  never  ceasing  struggles  to  es- 
cape from  the  muck  of  his  environment  is  revealed  with 
almost  photographic  accuracy  and  vividness.  The  volume 
is  remarkable  for  its  portrayal  of  types,  for  the  unfailing  in- 
terest of  the  many  incidents  of  its  plot  and  for  the  amazing 
revelations  of  conditions  surrounding  the  daily  existence  of 
certain  classes  of  men  and  women. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers        64-66  Fifth  Avenue       New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-25TO-7,'61(Cl437s4)4280 


UCLA-college  Library 

PR  6037  S61b  1916 


L 
005  755  530  2 


College 
Library 


PR 

6037 
S6lb 
1916 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

II  I! 

A    001  185258    9 


